Most of our planet—seventy-one percent—is water. This might seem more than enough to go around, but there might be less than you think. Wasting water takes a toll on the environment in surprising ways.
According to a study by researchers at the University of South Florida, it takes around 1.1 kilowatt-hours to treat and transport just 100 gallons of drinkable water. That’s enough energy to keep a 50-inch LED TV running for 62,500 hours or over seven years.
Florida residents use about 100 to 150 gallons of water a day, with around 24 percent being used in toilets, 20 percent for showers and 19 percent for running faucets in our bathrooms and kitchens. Half of all the water Floridians use each day goes directly into the ground—900 million gallons, all used to water lawns.
Saving water saves more than just the water, but also all that energy used to treat it. Here are four quick ways you can do your part to save water, save the energy it costs to treat it and bring it to your tap and save the planet.
1. Use Low-Flow Shower Heads
Showering can use up to two gallons of water each minute, making it easy to see how this is the third-largest consumer of water in Florida homes. Switching to low-flow showerheads is a great way to help, as it will cut your water consumption (and your monthly water bill!) by up to forty percent. You can do more by taking quick showers and turning the water off while you’re soaping up.
2. Turn Off the Water While Brushing Your Teeth
It’s surprising how many people do this and it is one of the easiest ways to save water. Wet your toothbrush before applying toothpaste, then turn it off while you brush. You don’t even need to rinse your mouth afterward, even though 62 percent of us do. Rinsing immediately after brushing washes away the fluoride in toothpaste that protects our teeth, which makes skipping this step good for you as well as good for the planet.
3. Always Fill Your Dishwasher Before Use
It’s better for the environment to use a dishwasher than to hand wash dishes, as hand washing as many dishes as will fit in a fully loaded dishwasher wastes as much as twenty-seven gallons of water a day. Using an Energy Star-rated dishwasher uses as little as three gallons for the same amount of dishes. Before loading them into your dishwasher, scrape food waste off of dishes (and consider using food scraps as compost) and only run it when it is full.
4. Water Lawns at Dawn or Dusk
If you must water your lawn, do it in the least wasteful way possible. Water evaporates quickly in hot, sunny conditions and Florida isn’t called the Sunshine State for nothing. Water your lawn once per day, when the sun is low in the sky. Watering just around sunset is better, as the water won’t evaporate as quickly as it would in the morning.
Help the Planet, Help Yourself
Freshwater is a precious resource and though more is being done to provide it, there’s still plenty of reason to do your part. Consider using other water-saving appliances, like energy-efficient dishwashers and toilets or bidets designed to use as little water as necessary.
Contact Sebastian Eilert Architecture to discuss upgrades and redesigns that can beautify your home—and help keep our planet green. Also available by email or phone, Sebastian is recognized as one of the 30 most influential sustainable design architects in the world, is US Green Building Council accredited and would be happy to discuss ecological options with you.