27 EASY WAYS TO SAVE WATER

My husband and I don’t yet live on a property where it is feasible to personally store rainwater from our roof or to direct it below ground (although our residential complex does filter rainwater and allows it to seep down).  Neither does our property nor the complex have arrangements to redirect cleaned wastewater for flushing – though the wastewater is used for lawns.

Below are 27 methods we use to save water every day of our lives. It is worth remembering that it is only 60 % sustained reduction in water use that kept the taps in Capetown in South Africa, running last year. Water is short all over the globe, and tremendously in India :

Kitchen Use

1. Utensils such as trays and plates for tea cups are washed just with water as they are not dirty.
2. Oily utensils are wiped with newspaper cut outs and washed after that.
3. We constantly remind our staff to open the kitchen tap very little while washing utensils. They have been even fined for ignoring these instructions persistently.
4. Cut newspaper is used to soak up spills or dirty kitchen surfaces so there is less washing to do of cleaning dusters.
5. The foolish idea that stored drinking water becomes ‘stale’ overnight and is to be thrown is not followed at our place.
6. Water left in a glass or thermos is emptied in a bucket to be re-used.
7. RO wastewater is collected in a bucket via the waste pipe of RO made longer. The water is used for washing utensils / pocha / soaking clothes or with plants.
8. Guests are each given different design glasses so they can hold on to them for drinking water for the duration of their stay.

Domestic Use

9. We never wash any part of the floors.
10. We do pocha (swabbing) only of visibly unclean parts and only when they appear dirty.
11. When feasible, pocha water is reused with plants.
12. Many clothes are aired and re-used. Or soaked in a small amount of water for 30 min, wrung and dried. Only some portion of the clothes we wear everyday are put in the washing machine.
13. Same with pillow covers, sheets and blankets. Both sides of the material are used in turn and occasionally violently dusted outside. Only when a material has thus been used, it is then washed.
14. Carpets and sofa covers are dusted with teela jharoo (rough broom) kept for just this purpose. When occasionally grimy, they are cleaned off with hotwater and powder soap, thus saving on washing them. Very rarely do they have to be washed.
15. No leaks or drips in taps are tolerated. They are immediately repaired, and until then, that tap is kept closed.

Personal Hygiene

16. Concentrated liquid soap takes a lot of water to wash off. So we dilute it by about 100 percent.
17. A mug near the sink is used to fill water from tap and used for washing of face or brushing, rather than let the water run on in the tap.
18. Little water is used for bathing.
19. While waiting for hot water to arrive in the faucet, the cold water is gathered in a bucket and re-used for soaking clothes or swabbing.
20. Only as much water as needed is used for flushing by using the dual control switch of the flush tank.

Car and Garden

21. We wash our car in less than one bucket of water.
22. We use treated wastewater to water our lawns if available on day and time of watering.
23. The garden and the house is shaded with large green nursery cloth during summer, lessening the need for watering.
24. A lot of ‘mulch’ is left on the soil – compost, and even fallen leaves in side kyaris which again help keep soil from drying out, lessening the need for watering.
25. We grow hardy trees and vines apart from some palms and moneyplants. Not delicate plants that would need constant misting and humid environment.

Water for cooling during summers

26. We use small honeycomb pad coolers that use only 15 ltrs over 8 hours compared to normal medium sized woodwool coolers that use 100 ltrs overnight.
27. Because we keep our home well shaded in summer day time, and open to cool breeze night long, we need coolers and even fans much less than our neighbours :
1. The hard surfaces of the house like parking area which may get hot in day time, are kept shaded with green cloth.
2. The windows and doors that might receive sun or even hot winds are kept closed in the day and shaded OUTSIDE by plastic curtains / roller blinds / chiks / tirpals.
3. The roof is kept cool by thick cream / white tirpal spread out over the surface of the roof.