Mindful Monday: Conserving Water

For Earth Day this year I pledged to use less water.  While I may or may not have achieved my goal for that one day, I am making an effort to apply it to my everyday life.

Clean water is one of the most precious commodities on Earth.  I am blessed to live in area where we not only have clean drinking water, but we also receive our fair share of precipitation.  That’s not to say we don’t have droughts and water restrictions, we do.  But they don’t really last long, and they are incomparable to those in other parts of the world.

Check out this billboard in Peru that collects water from the air and turns it into clean drinking water.  

That being said, I have started to do my part to try to conserve water where I can.  

• I turn off running water at times when I used to let it flow.  Like when I’m waiting for the water to turn hot.  I used to let it run until it was hot, but now I just use what I have no matter the temperature.  
• I use the rain water collected in my empty plant containers to water the ones that have plant in them. 
• We just purchased a high-efficiency washing mashing that seems to use hardly any water at all.  I find this thing amazing to watch as it washes my clothes because it uses so little water and gets the same results as our old washer.
• I load the dishwasher so it’s full, but not overly stuffed.  It’s no good to save water on less dishwasher cycles if you’re re-washing the dishes when they come out.

There's also this:

I really want to make a rain barrel, and while I may not be permitted to put it by the house, I could put one behind the big garage by the garden.  It’s even uphill from the garden, so the pressure from the water in the barrel should be enough to attach a hose for watering farther away.

Once I get this up and running, I promise to share the entire process with you.

I know this isn’t much, but it’s a start.  Small steps are better than no steps at all.

Make every drop count.