A lot of water waste happens right in the bathroom - from our toilets to our tubs. According to the official website eartheasy.com, showers account for 22% of individual water use in North America. Not to mention that American homes release about 10,000 gallons of water from their faucets each year.
Here are some ways you can cut back on consumption while saving money on water and energy. You can make simple behavioral changes at home like turning off the faucet when brushing your teeth or shaving, and try reducing the shower time by a few minutes each day. Take this one step further by installing low-flow showerheads and faucet aerators. These energy-efficient measures reduce your home water consumption and your energy cost of heating the water by as much as 50% (eartheasy.com).
Low-flow showerheads are an easy, inexpensive solution for sustainable living as they reduce the water emitted per minute, but don't lower the shower head pressure.
Low-flow toilets are required for most new construction and use only one-third of the water older toilets use.
According to chasinggreen.org, bathroom faucets that don't have aerators installed use between three and six gallons of water per minute. So what do aerators do? Simply put, they cut the amount of water released from a faucet because the aerator mixes air bubbles into the stream; reducing water waste, splashing and energy use. Typically, aerators cost between $2 to $10 each and can easily be purchased online and at hardware stores (chasinggreen.org).
In addition to reducing the amount of your monthly electric bill, conserving water even helps prevent pollution in local lakes, rivers and watersheds.
By the Numbers
As leaders in the state of Maryland for providing quick home energy checkups, we’ve implemented water saving measures such as these to more than 22,000 residents. In providing these retrofit solutions, greeNEWit has saved 137,963,751 gallons of water annually in the Baltimore area. That’s enough water to fill 41 Olympic size swimming pools (each pool holds 660,430 gallons of water).
For more info on water usage by the numbers check out the infographic below. For more water saving tips that are easy and simple at home, check out this video. Click the link to view last week's blog post Back in School and Back to Energy Savings.
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