FACT: According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), indoors, 3/4 of all water is used in the bathroom.
One easy and inexpensive way to green your bathroom is to simply save water. Reducing your personal water usage has a tremendous positive impact on the environment and on your wallet. The first step is being mindful of your habits. Do you leave the water running while brushing your teeth? Does your husband shave with a constant stream of hot water running from the faucet? Do you let warm-up water go down the drain while drawing a bubble bath? Changing one of these costly habits will result in immediate savings to you and your planet.
To save even more money by conserving water, consider installing an aerator on your faucet. Without an aerator, water usually flows out of a faucet as one big stream. An aerator spreads this stream into many little droplets. This helps save water and reduces splashing.
Showering represents approximately 17 percent of residential indoor water use in the United States—more than 1.2 trillion gallons of water consumed each year. Inexpensive and simple to install, low-flow shower heads can reduce your home water consumption as much as 50%, and reduce your energy cost of heating the water also by as much as 50%
To cut down on water waste, put an inch or two of sand or pebbles inside each of two plastic bottles to weigh them down. Fill the bottles with water, screw the lids on, and put them in your toilet tank, safely away from the operating mechanisms. You can also purchase an inexpensive “tank bank”. This may save ten or more gallons of water per day.
TIP: Be sure at least 3 gallons of water remain in the tank so it will flush properly.
If you are in the market for a new toilet, consider a “low flush” model which use 1 to 2 gallons per flush instead of the usual 3 to 5 gallons.
Replacing an 18 liter per flush toilet with an ultra-low volume (ULV) 6 liter flush model represents a 70% savings in water flushed and will cut indoor water use by about 30%.
No matter what model toilet you use, never flush garbage of any kind. Every time you flush a cigarette butt, facial tissue or other small bit of trash, five to seven gallons of water is wasted.
Tune into H&Y Radio with the Fixie Chick this Saturday at 10:00am on 950 ESPN to hear more money saving home tips. The first caller (222-6397) to say they read the Fixie Chick blog at herRochester.com will win at pair of tickets to next weeks home show at the dome!
Thanks for reading,
-The Fixie Chick
By: Brenna Hartmann
Posts Tagged ‘Plastic Bottles’
Geening Your Bath Water – Conservation Tips
January 24th, 2010The Environment and Management Principles
November 14th, 2009The surrounding influences which are now included in the meaning of ‘the environment’ are the air that we breathe, the water we drink or swim in, our homes, numbers of people, traffic, noise, streets, stores, parks, countryside, seashore, wildlife, factories, farming and mining. It has become the practice in geography to refer to the physical environment when referring to natural features, the human environment when referring to cultural and social conditions and the built environment when referring to urban and industrial issues.
Because it is now apparent that mankind its their own environment by the decisions it makes regarding land use and industrial growth, it is apparent that man has a choice in the type of environment he inhabits. There are areas where action can be taken, such as in planning and rural uses, in conservation, flood control and in resources, all these issues collectively referred to as environmental management.
Government agencies, which seek to control pollution, are seen as the most widespread type of environmental management bodies. All types of pollution can be seen as examples of environmental damage. Various levels of environmental damage can be identified from that which is seen as a local concern and that which is a global concern. Environmental contamination, highlighted by such things as plastic bottles left on beaches to the occasional high levels of noise such as that from aircraft, are seen as the least harmful form of damage to the environment.
An environmental hazard where the pollution level puts organic life at risk of permanent destruction is more serious. Environmental pollution where an organic life is destroyed temporarily in a certain area, such as an oil spill, is more serious again but occurs more frequently. Environmental disaster involving widespread and heavy loss of life is becoming a menacing threat. The recognition of these dynamic environmental issues has led to the creation of many government agencies. The first UN conference on the environment in 1972 issued a 26-principle Declaration which declared the protection and enhancement of the environment to have become an imperative goal for mankind.
As the world population continues to increase the, environmental management to control pollution is becoming increasingly necessary. Unless ecological principles, conservation, resource management and population checks are widely adopted, the environment may degrade to the point of collapse, perhaps in the near future. Because the environment is a well structured system, with varying pathways and alternatives with great flexibility, any approach to instability will be difficult to detect and failure will appear suddenly.
Environmental determination is the belief that all human activity can be explained by environmental laws and controls. It was developed during the 19th century. Environmental determinism is seen as deviation from the mainstream of geographical thought, which views geography as a scientific approach to the describing and mapping regions of the Earth.
By: Shawn Hickman
