8 Life Hacks That Can Help You Curb Your Water Usage

We know that Green Monsters are always looking for ways to conserve natural resources, that’s just one of the many things we love about you! Lately, one of our natural resources has been getting a lot of attention due to its dire need for Conservation. Yes, we’re talking about water. It’s no secret that global water supply is of huge concern right now. In the United States, 25 percent of the country is in extreme drought conditions, with California experiencing one of the worst droughts in history.

The reasons behind these droughts are many, with agricultural practices and climate change ranking chief among them, but that doesn’t mean we can’t pull a few tricks out of our sleeves to lessen our individual water footprints. Did you know that the average American uses 2,000 gallons of water per day due to their food choices, automotive habits, personal usage and various other means? At 730,000 gallons per year, that’s the equivalent of 36 swimming pools!

So, where do you stack up against the average? A good place to start assessing  your own personal water usage is by checking out National Geographic’s Change the Course Campaign and plugging your usage information into their Water Footprint Calculator. Once you’ve taken a good hard look at where you’re using the most water,  you can take their pledge to use less. With every pledge, Change the Course will restore 1000 gallons of water back to the Colorado River Basin.

By making changes, big or small, we can all make a difference in helping to heal our planet. While installing low flow shower heads and toilets, decreasing how much we drive, switching to a more fuel-efficient car and shifting toward a plant based diet are the big ways we can honor that pledge, there are also a bunch of little things we can do that add up in the long run. We can be more water-wise together and these life hacks can help us get started!

1. A gallon of gasoline requires nearly 13 gallons of water to produce, so increasing your mileage by driving sensibly isn’t just good for your wallet but it’s good for the planet too.

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2. With an average shower head, over 5 gallons of water goes down the drain while we wait for the shower to heat up.

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3. Do your best to take care of your pout without causing a drought! (We’re not even sorry).

4. The average person’s shower lasts 8 minutes, which costs about 18 gallons of water with an average shower head. Keep that duration the same, but double the occupancy, and you’ve cut that number in half.

5. Having a hard time cutting your shower time down? Don’t let it get you into a lather. Try skipping the daily shampoo. It’s better for your hair not to over-wash while a fabulous, cruelty-free dry shampoo can refresh you on the off days. 

6. Think showering is the largest personal water user in the house? It’s not. Toilet flushing comes in at over 26 percent of total water usage. Even high efficiency toilets use 1.28 gallons per flush (older toilets can use up to seven!) so each skipped flush adds up.

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7. Can’t afford a new, low flow toilet at the moment? Trick your toilet into using less water. It’s for its own good.

8. The single most expensive item in terms of water cost in our lives involves our plates. It requires a whopping 1799 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef! If you’re not ready to go totally plant based though, don’t despair. Even a little can go a long way!