Green Household Tips: Reducing your Wastewater Outflow

Posted on | October 1, 2008 |

Wastewater is simply used water. It includes substances such as human waste, food scraps, oils, soaps and chemicals. In homes, this includes water from sinks, showers, bathtubs, toilets, washing machines and dishwashers. Herein we will explore some simple ways to help “slow the flow.”

1. Reduce your water pressure
One simple way of reducing your water pressure is by replacing your old shower head with a low-flow shower head. All showerheads manufactured after 1995 must flow at no more than 2.5 gallons per minute. If your shower is older than 1995, now may be a good time to do some updating.

2. Strive to be more wastewater conscious
Limiting your time in the shower can save 10 gallons of water every 4 minutes (and even more if you have an older shower). Shower meditation can certainly be a hard habit to kick, but a 4 minute brisk walk can be just as effective – and healthier! Maybe even consider installing a shower timer (that’s right, somebody beat you to the patent).
Turning off faucets while shaving and brushing your teeth can also help reduce your wastewater outflow. For shaving, consider simply filling the sink to a low level, rather than just rinsing your razor in the running water. And when brushing, fill a cup for rinsing and swishing. It helps save water, and is much less barbaric than drinking from your “hand basin.”
Stop using the toilet as an ashtray or wastebasket. Some people flush away tissues and other trash in the toilet. Using a wastebasket will save all those gallons of water that otherwise go wastefully down the drain. (See Improve your Toilets below for details on water used by toilets).
And as for those washing machines, try to only run them when they are full, and always adjust cycle settings to match loads.

3. Improving your Toilets
Replacing old high-flow toilets with water-saving or low-flush toilets is an extremely effective way of reducing wastewater. Most toilets installed before 1980 use 5-7 gallons of water per flush. Toilets installed between 1980 and 1993 use 3.5 gallons per flush. And toilets installed since 1994 use 1.6 gallons. Wow. Let’s update that toilet.
Another simple way to improve your toilets is to fill a milk jug or plastic container with rocks and place it in the toilet tank. Also, fix toilets that are constantly running. Most of the time, a running toilet can be fixed by simply replacing the plug in the water tank.

So, as you can see, by changing just a few habits, you could save thousands and thousands of gallons of water per year and make you “water footprint” a little smaller.

Gold Coast

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