Water Conservation - Serendipity

I always love it when things come together in mysterious and magical ways.

Earlier this week, it felt important to me to write about water conservation this week. Enough that I had 2 or 3 posts worth of information that I wanted to write about. And that's a lot for me.
And, when I started to write my first post I almost stopped, because it seemed weird to be writing about water conservation during a month-long deluge.

Today, I had an oppertunity to listen to one of my favorite NPR talk hosts interviewing Robert Glennon who has written a book called Unquenchable: America's Water Crisis and What To Do About It .

He was talking about many of the things I have concerns about, but certainly did not touch on everything. You can listen to the podcast of the interview HERE if you are interested.

Water Conservation - If it's Yellow let it Mellow!

Ok...I've got two young boys so potty humor is at an all-time high in our house.

Truth be told, though, when it's just the four of us at home we definitely try to conserve water by making multiple uses of the water in the bowl - as long as it's yellow - before flushing it down.
It started as an overnight noise curtesy, but we don't have the most modern water-efficient fixtures and really can't afford to replace what we've got at the moment, so it has evolved into a water conservation habit.
And besides, even if we had the 1.5 gallon per flush fixtures, why waste 1.5 gallons when all four of us need to go at the same time

BUT, with the kids being little, getting it across to them, that when we've got company the multi-use rule is NOT in effect, is sometimes problematic.

Also, since implementing the multi-use rule, I've come up with some additional corollaries about single use flushing:
* If you use an upstairs bathroom and no one else is immediately using it, FLUSH.
* If you use the downstairs bathroom and we're leaving the house, FLUSH.
Because, letting it mellow all day long is just too yukkie for words and means more frequent cleaning will be needed.

Along with intentional flush frequency reduction, I have collected a number of links which use grey water or rain water for feeding a toilet. Some are quite ingenius! Enjoy!

Rain Barrel to Toilet Installation - a practical how-to guide
I really want to do this someday!

Grey Water Recycling systems for the Bathroom
and
Sink-Toilet Combination fixtures

Here is a system available for collecting grey water from the kitchen sink.

There are also systems available for washing machine and shower water...just google Greywater System or Greywater Recycling.

Water Conservation - Washing the Veggies

I'm going to start a weird topic for my area this week....Water Conservation.
This June has been one of the wettest I can remember. I don't think we've had more than 1 or 2 days where we didn't get at least 1 shower, and most days were completely grey and rainy.
Gardens are waterlogged, Lake Hopatcong is actually full...when on Memorial Day there were many lamenting how empty it still was from the winter lowering.

So, before June, we were in a drought.

And, summer drought has become common in our area in the last 10 years, I've heard announcements about lakes and reservoirs being at record lows frequently. And the building boom of the late 1990s and 2000's has not helped.

I have posted on my garden site about wanting a rain-water capturing system that we just haven't been able to afford yet, so that I don't have to feel nervous about watering our garden from our well. Nor have we been able to find a source for clean used barrels...

We've never had a problem with our well, and as far as I know, no one around us has either.
It's just that when you think about the dryness around, lakes lower, less rainfall in the highlands, etc it makes you take note, so I'm going to blog about conserving water, even after a month with 10+ inches of rain.

We get most of our produce from the biodynamic Community Supported Garden (CSG) at Genesis Farm.
Some of it comes home pretty dirty, and for years I was washing it all under running water.
For the past year or two, though, I've been trying to do as much as I can with less water.
I start by putting the veggies in a big bowl or use the salad spinner and letting it fill half way, scrubbing the veggies using the water from the bowl; setting aside each scrubbed veggie until the dirt is off and I have a bowl of brown muddy water.

Then I use that water to water plants, and get the benefit of all that biodynamic soil, rather than letting it run down the drain along with gallons and gallons of water....
After getting rid of the "mud", I give the veggies a final rinse, now free of most of their dirt, it only takes a slow stream of running water, again captured in the bowl...and use that for the plants too.

There have been times when I've been "too busy" to do it this way, but when I don't capture the wash water and let it run even a little, I feel guilty.

Water is a precious resource.