9 Things You Can Do to Save Water in the Bathroom.

1. Check your toilets for leaks. Put a little food coloring in your toilet tank. If without flushing, the color begins to appear in the bowl, you have a leak that should be repaired immediately.

2. Stop using the toilet as an ashtray or wastebasket. Every time you flush a cigarette butt, facial tissue, or other small bit of trash, you waste five to seven gallons of water.

3. Put plastic bottles in your toilet tank. To cut down on water waste, put an inch or two of sand or pebbles inside of each of two plastic bottles to weigh them down. Fill them with water and put them in your toilet tank, safely away from operating mechanisms. In an average home, the bottles may displace and save ten or more gallons of water a day.

4. Take shorter showers. Long, hot showers can waste five to ten gallons every unneeded minute. Limit your showers to the time it takes to soap up, wash down, and rinse off.

5. Install water-saving shower heads or flow restrictors. Your local hardware or plumbing supply store stocks inexpensive water-saving shower heads or restrictors that are easy to install.

6. Take baths. A bath in a partially filled tub uses less water than all but the shortest showers.

7. Turn off the water after you wet your toothbrush. There is no need to keep water pouring down the drain. Just wet your brush and fill a glass for mouth rinsing.

8. Rinse your razor in the sink. Fill the bottom of the sink with a few inches of warm water. This will rinse your blade just as well as running water. And far less wastefully.

9. Check faucets and pipes for leaks. Even the smallest drip from a worn washer can waster 20 or more gallons a day. Larger leaks can waste hundreds.

top of page

6 Things You Can Do to Save Water in the Kitchen and Laundry.

1. Use your automatic dishwasher only for full loads.

2. Use your automatic washing machine only for full loads.

3. If you wash dishes by hand, don't leave the water running for rinsing. If you have two sinks, fill one with soapy water and one with rinse water. If you have only one sink, gather washed dishes in a dish rack and rinse them with a spray device or a pan full of hot water.

4. Don't let the faucet run while you clean vegetables. Just rinse them in a stoppered sink or a pan of clean water.

5. Keep a bottle of drinking water in the refrigerator. Running tap water to cool it off for drinking water is wasteful.  Leave the lid of the container off in the fridge, and the chlorine taste will dissipate.

6. Check faucets and pipes for leaks. Leaks waste water 24 hours a day, seven days a week and often can be repaired with just an inexpensive washer.

top of page

10 Things You Can Do to Save Water Outside.

1. Water your lawn only when it needs it. A good way to see if your lawn needs watering is to step on the grass. If it springs back up when you move, it doesn't need water. If it stays flat, fetch the sprinkler.

2. Deep-soak your lawn. When you do water, do it long enough for the moisture to soak down to the roots where it will do the most good. A light sprinkling can evaporate quickly and tends to encourage shallow root systems.

3. Water during the cool parts of the day. Rutgers Coop Extension says 10pm to 8am is optimal.  We'd like to see you set your irrigation clocks to 10pm - 3am to avoid causing low pressures early in the morning when everyone is either getting ready for work or beginning their day.

4. Don't water the gutter. Position your sprinklers so water lands on the lawn or garden, not on paved areas. Also avoid watering on windy days.

5. Plant drought-resistant trees and plants. Many beautiful trees and plants thrive with far less watering than other species.

6. Put a layer of mulch around trees and plants. Mulch will slow evaporation of moisture and discourage weed growth, too.

7. Use a broom, not a hose, to clean driveways and sidewalks.

8. Don't run the hose while washing your car. Clean the car with a pail of soapy water. Use the hose just to rinse it off.

9. Tell your children not to play with the hose and sprinklers.

10. Check for leaks in pipes, hoses, faucets, and couplings. Leaks outside the house may not seem as bad since they're not as visible. But they can be just as wasteful as leaks inside. Check frequently and keep them drip-free.

top of page

25 Facts About Water.

Water needs our help. We have the same amount of water today as we did when the Earth was formed. Constant use and pollution threaten our water resources. For example, 600,000 pounds of pollutants are pouring into our water resources every day. That's just industrial waste. Experts estimate that non-point pollution, that is, agricultural and urban runoff, as well as residential dribs and drabs of pollution, threatens our water resources more than industry.

The Blue Thumb Program shows us how to take better care of our water resources. It promotes three basic actions as the keys to water care: conserve water, protect it from pollution, and get involved in drinking water issues in your local community.

You can practice "Blue Thumb" actions at home, at work, at school, and in any public place. Each day we are confronted with scores of decisions that affect drinking water. We have the opportunity to make a water decision every time we reach out our hand to turn on the tap and every time we notice a dripping faucet, see a business running its sprinklers on a rainy day, buy toxic cleaners, put fertilizer on the lawn, choose to buy recycled paper products, or read about a public meeting on local land use. We can make a difference if we practice the Blue Thumb basics of conserving, protecting, and getting involved.

Each of us has a role in keeping water safe to drink. Just as "green thumb" people know how to care for plants, people with "Blue Thumbs" know how to take care of water. We invite you to show your "Blue Thumb" and take action to conserve and protect our water resources every day. To help you learn more about water, here are 25 basic facts:

1. Water is the most common substance found on earth.

2. In 1989, Americans dumped 365 million gallons of motor oil or the equivalent of 27 Exxon Valdez spills.

3. Of all the earth's water, 97% is salt water located in oceans and seas.

4. Only 1% of the earth's water is available for drinking water.

5. About two thirds of the human body is water. Some parts of the body contain more water than others. For example, 70% of your skin is water.

6. There are more than 200,000 individual water systems providing water to the public in the United States.

7. Public water suppliers process 34 billion gallons of water per day for domestic and public use.

8. Approximately 1 million miles of pipelines and aqueducts carry water in the United States and Canada. That's enough to circle the earth 40 times.

9. About 800,000 water wells are drilled each year in the United States for domestic, farming, commercial, and water testing purposes.

10. Sixty-one percent of Americans rely on lakes, river, and streams as their sources of drinking water. The other 39% rely on groundwater - water located underground in aquifers and wells.

11. In 1974, Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act to ensure that drinking water is safe for consumption. The Act requires public water systems to monitor and treat drinking water for safety.

12. More than 13 million households drink from their own private wells and are responsible for treating and pumping the water themselves.

13. Industries released 197 million pounds of toxic chemical into waterways in 1990 alone.

14. The average daily requirement for fresh water in the United States is about 338 billion gallons a day, with about 300 billion gallons used as untreated water and for agriculture and other commercial purposes.

15. You can survive about a month without food, but only 5 to 7 days without water.

16. Each person uses about 100 gallons of water a day at home.

17. The average five-minute shower takes between 25-50 gallons of water.

18. You can refill an 8 oz. glass of water approximately 15,000 times for the same cost as a six-pack of pop.

19. The average automatic dishwasher uses 9-12 gallons of water while hand washing dishes can take up to 20 gallons.

20. If every household in America had a faucet that dripped once each second, we would waste 928 million gallons of water a day.

21. The 5 Great lakes bordering the United States and Canada contain about 20% of the world's available fresh water.

22. More than 39,000 gallons of water are used to manufacture a new car, including tires.

23. Water is a main ingredient in other beverages and it takes water to process them. For example, it takes 1,500 gallons of water to make 1 barrel of beer.

24. Seventy-five percent of a tree is water.

25. One gallon of gasoline can contaminate approximately 750,000 gallons of water.