3 Easy Tips for Going Green This St. Patrick’s Day!
With the increasing concern with the environment, many homeowners are trying to find ways to go “green” in their homes. Every little bit of water saved helps, as does even the smallest reduction in the home’s carbon footprint. And when everyone does simple little things to reduce their excess expenditure of water, it adds up and helps locally and globally. And since St. Patrick’s Day is coming up, there’s no better time to go green than now! Read on to learn three simple plumbing tips for reducing excess water usage in the home.
Use Eco-Friendly Appliances and Fixtures
There’s a wide range of eco-friendly plumbing appliances available today. And while many of them are slightly more expensive than their water-wasting counterparts, the return they give homeowners over time on the water bill makes them an investment instead of an expenditure. The most common and popular water savers for the home include low-flow faucets, showerheads, and water-saving toilets.
Low-flow faucets and showerheads utilize similar technology, often mixing air with the water for a powerful flow that rivals full-flow fixtures. The difference here is that these eco-friendly fixtures use significantly less water, which helps homeowners “go green” and save money. The eco-friendly toilets available on the market today use about half of the water of traditional toilets. Some offer 1.6 gallons per flush, compared to the 3.5 gallons of regular toilets. When these fixtures are combined, homeowners see a significant decrease in water usage.
Implement Green Habits
While installing water-saving fixtures is an easy and automatic way to prevent wasting water, there are additional measures homeowners can take to go even “greener.” Turning off the water while household members are brushing their teeth is easy. Reducing the length of daily showers by a minute or two can also help homeowners save water over time.
Only running the washing machine when there’s a full load can also save water by reducing the number of times the machine runs. If the household members drink water from the tap, it can be worth it to store water in the fridge to keep it cold instead of letting the faucet run until the water gets cold.
Pay Attention to What Goes in the Toilet
This last tip has less to do with saving water and more to do with keeping pollution to a minimum. Using toilet paper made out of recycled materials is always a good idea. But, more so, making sure only toilet paper and human waste get flushed is essential. Inorganic material that gets flushed down the toilet may end up in the ocean, which is a serious problem for the ocean and the world’s ecosystem as a whole.
When homeowners combine all of the tips listed above, they can significantly dent their water bill. But they can also do their part to reduce the amount of waste their household generates. Investing in water-saving appliances and fixtures is a huge step, but so is watching what gets flushed and implementing simple habits in the home.