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Helpful tips and other easy means to save water.

 

• In your house check for leaks from faucets and pipes; even the smallest drip can waste as much as 75 liters a day.

In the bathroom:
• Flush less — remember the toilet is not an ashtray or wastebasket.

• While brushing teeth, shaving, etc., turn off the water.

• When cold water will do, avoid using hot water.

• Take shorter showers — 5 minutes or less.

• In the shower, wet yourself down, turn the water off, lather up, then turn the water on to rinse off soap.

In the kitchen:
• Operate the dishwasher only when you have a full load.

• Scrape, don’t rinse, your dishes before loading in the dishwasher.

• When purchasing a dishwasher, consider a water-efficient model.

• Thaw frozen food in the refrigerator or microwave, not under running water.

• Store drinking water in the refrigerator instead of letting the tap run while you wait for cool water to flow.

• When washing dishes by hand, fill one sink or basin with soapy water and fill the rinsing sink to one-third or one-half full
— avoid letting the water run continuously in the rinsing sink.

In the laundry:
• For washers with variable settings for water volume, select the minimum amount required per load.

• If load size cannot be set, operate the washer with full loads only.

• Use the shortest wash cycle for lightly soiled loads; normal and permanent press wash cycles use more water.

• Check hoses regularly for leaks.

• Pretreat stains to avoid rewashing.

Did you know?

• About 65% of indoor home water use occurs in our bathrooms. Toilets are the single greatest water user.

“UNESCO has predicted that by 2020 water shortage will be a serious worldwide problem.”

• Did you know that in Canada, the average person uses more than 343 litres of fresh water a day?

• In your house check for leaks from faucets and pipes; even the smallest drip can waste as much as 75 liters a day.

• Almost 80% of the earth's surface is covered in water. Of this, 97% is salt water, 2% is glacial ice. That leaves less than 1% as fresh water for us to use.

• The human body is about 70% water; we cannot survive more than a week without water.

• A mere 10% of our home water supply is used in the kitchen and as drinking water.

• Indoor water use peaks twice a day year-round, in the mornings and evenings.

• The biggest peaks during the year occur in the summer, when about half to three quarters of all municipally treated water is sprayed onto lawns.

• As a community grows, the water use grows even faster because the diversity of water uses increases with size.