What you can do to save water at home
IN THE BATHROOM:
- Turn the water off while brushing your teeth. Letting the tap run for two minutes while brushing your teeth twice a day could be wasting as much as 33 litres of water. Rather fill a glass with water and rinse your mouth and your brush. Saves 139 glasses per day
- Install a water hippo. The average toilet flush sends 11 litres of water down the drain. Save up to 20 % of this good quality drinking water by taking two minutes to install a water hippo: a 2 litre bottle weighted down with sand or two bricks which you place in your toilet cistern. Saves 13 glasses per flush
- Cut showers down to five minutes. Your average shower head delivers around 10 litres of w ater per minute, amounting to some 80 litres per average urban shower. Save as much as 400 litres a week by cutting back by just three minutes! Saves 140 glasses per shower
- Keep up with leaky toilets and taps. A dripping tap can waste as much as 90 litres per week, and leaks through your home plumbing system can account for up to 7% of your indoor water usage. Regula r maintenance saves money and water! Saves 152 glasses per day
- Collect and reuse your ‘warm-up’ water. As much as 25 litres of water per day pours out your hot water tap while you wait for the water to ‘warm-up’. Collect this water and use it! (or install a grey water recycling system to ensure that this is being done all the time!) saves 102 glasses per day
All the water that is piped into your homes is drinkable, and yet more than 98% is flushed down the drain from our showers, toilets and kitchen!!
IN THE KITCHEN:
- Rinse fruit and veggies in a bowl. Saves 318 glasses per week
- Don’t rinse your dishes before loading the dishwasher. Scrape and wipe rather. Saves 320 glasses per wash
- Wait till the dishwasher is full. Saves 240 glasses per wash
- Install a grey water system. Why not install a grey water system and save ALL the water that goes down your drain??
OUTSIDE:
- Put a shut-off nozzle on your hose. Saves ups to 1152 glasses of water
- Waterless car wash. Using a bucket instead of a hosepipe to wash your car saves 1139 glasses/ 270litres per wash!! Look out for ‘waterless’ cleaning products on the market, and don’t use any water at all!
- Go indigenous. Save up to 80% of the 2700 litres used to water a garden three times per week, by planting indigenous plants and reducing the size of your lawn.
The average South African uses 2550 litres of water per day! Small savings make a big difference!!
Source: Simply Green: SA’s No.1 Green Lifestyle Mag – Jan/Feb ’10
Saving water is easy! If water cost 10x more than it does now, would you do more to conserve it? As demand and costs escalate, municipalities will be forced to increase prices drastically within the next few years. There are already areas in South Africa and the world where money can’t buy water- there isn’t any to buy! Water scarcity is a reality in South Africa. Just as electricity shortfalls affect people from all walks of life, so will water shortages. Rainwater harvesting (with rainwater tanks)and greywater systems are a solution to the coming water crisis. Small changes to your toilet flush mechanism can also reduce your water consumption. Reducing the amount of water in the cistern is one solution (like installing a ‘water hippo’). A more precise and efficient solution is to install a Water Rhapsody Multi-flush device where it will only flush as long as you hold the handle down. Installing an energy and water-saving shower head is another way to save water. Water tanks are at the core of many water conservation systems. We are authorized JoJo Tank dealers can supply the full range of JoJo water tanks and water tank stands. Contact us for a free quote on any JoJo Tanks product, including water tanks, chemical tanks, underground tanks and water tank stands.
All JoJo Tanks polyethylene tanks and products now carry a 8 year warranty (on tanks purchased on or after 1 July 2013)
