According to the International Car Wash Association, washing your car at home or in the driveway uses between 80 and 140 gallons of water. Also, washing your car at home releases contaminated water directly into the environment or into storm drains intended for rainwater causing pollution in rivers, streams and oceans.

Soon, water rationing and restrictions on car washing may come our way. In fact, some municipalities have already banned home car washing with a hose, enforcing the ban with citations and possible imprisonment for violators.

Ecolo Green Car Wash is a response to this problem, providing services and products that use the equivalent of JUST one glass of water to wash a car.

This product works and we certainly hope you use it (find out more at our website - www.ecologreencarwash.com). But this product or any other like it won’t succeed unless we change our behavior first. This isn’t just about saving water washing your car. It’s about preserving the future by changing the way you act in your everyday life.

That can be expected considering the population increase, and Andrew Nusca and Larry Dignan of “Smart Planet” do a great job of breaking down the survey here. The bottom line is the downturn in water-use has stemmed from more effecient technologies in irrigation systems and power plants. This, of course, is great news but we can make it even better by continuing to do our part as consumers. It may not seem like a low flow shower head or reusing water from the dishes makes a difference, but it does. In fact, it makes a big difference.

The last 30 years are obviously a step in the right direction but water is more scarce now than ever and it’s going to take all of our efforts to continue to make a difference. It’s easy. Start here and spread the word.

Tomorrow, October 8, Guy  Laliberte, Founder of Cirque du Soleil and President of the One Drop Foundation is launching Moving Stars and Earth For Water, and online event to raise awareness of water-related issues. The event brings together personalities including former U.S. VP Al Gore, Dr. David Suzuki, U2 and Shakira to heighten awareness of water-related issues in a way only Cirque du Soleil could.

While the event will certainly be spectacular (and you can find out all the details about how you can participate here), visit Laliberte’s “One Drop Foundation” site and pledge a behavior that will make an immediate impact. The event might be tomorrow but water conservation is something you can pledge to do year round.

Having this many jeans already seems a bit excessive. But when you factor in that it takes 1,800 gallons of water to grow enough cotton to make just one pair of jeans, this suddenly seems to go far beyond excess. It’s unreasonable to suggest that we no longer buy jeans or condemn those that do. After all, jeans are as much a part of America as apple pie and angry political debates.

But armed with this statistic it does seem that we should find a use for the jeans we all have soaking up space in our closets. If we’re going to use the water to grow the cotton to make the jeans, let’s put our old jeans back to use.

So in addition to asking you to follow our more traditional water saving tips we’d also like to ask that you donate your old jeans. Make them useful again by donating them to your local Goodwill and we’ll dramatically reduce our water consumption. Not only will our environment thank you but so will the person you just helped get a new pair of jeans.

What does this have to do with water conservation? Well, conserving water is about adopting behaviors and it turns out it’s far easier to adopt behaviors as part of a group than on your own. As ASU professor, Robert Cialdini found out, simply changing the wording on hotel towel reuse signs can contribute to saving 7 trillion gallons of water – a theory dubbed “social proof.”

Not convinced? Check out the study here.

With this topic in mind, Cathy Rymer, who represents Water – Use It Wisely for the City of Chandler, took to the airwaves to spread the message about smart conservation.

Click here to learn a few simple things you can do to be more water effecient this summer.

Think you’ve done everything possible to save water but still looking for ways to do more?  Are you a “gadget person” who likes to tinker with technology, from the simple to the complex?  You might be surprised to learn that there’s even more ways to save water by looking into new technologies.

The Water – Use It Wisely Web site, www.wateruseitwisely.com has a listing of innovative technologies that can help you conserve water and ultimately save money.  Following are a few ideas you may not have thought of before.

• Humidity Moisture Sensing and Control Products – Humidity moisture sensors override irrigation controllers when the humidity is at a high enough level, indicating that there’s no need to irrigate.

• Drip Stop Valves – These offer a permanent replacement to the old-fashioned rubber washers used in most compression faucets.  By stopping leaks, this saves millions of acre-feet of water each year.

• Rain Barrels –Rain harvesting is a simple concept.  Simply divert water from gutters into a mosquito-proof storage tank for future use.  Then, when you need water for non-edible purposes, recycle your rain water! 

• Surface Flow – Such systems are ideally suited for turf irrigation where runoff is an issue.  The technology takes advantage of the “wicking” action common to straw, sponges and other porous materials.  A single point of watering spreads out across the turf.  This leads to higher distribution efficiency, reduces water requirements by 25 to 40 percent and virtually eliminates water runoff.

• Smart Controllers — Large commercial water users use sophisticated equipment, complex scientific instruments and detailed calculations to fine tune their irrigation systems to supply only the water needed.  Like these advanced commercial systems, smart controllers take key weather data and combine it with basic site and sprinkler system information to calculate the exact amount of water needed to irrigate your landscape. 

• Aquazerve – This system operates off of pressure developed by your existing pool filtration system. The unit is mounted on the return line of your pool system, directly after your pool filter. The water is pressurized by the pool pump and delivered to irrigation through 1/4″ tubing.  The water savings is the amount of water you would normally discharge to waste during the draining process.

For more water saving tips, visit www.wateruseitwisely.com.  There, you can also take a user-friendly home family water audit and sign-up to receive a monthly water saving tip to remind you of your resolution and to keep you conserving all year long.  

Boeing partnered with Metropolitan Water District of Southern California to install motion-activated faucets and water-saving toilets throughout their 23 El Segundo facilities. Even before the five-year plan took effect in 2007, Boeing has worked to reduce its environmental impact. Since 2002, Boeing has reduced its water consumption by 29 percent at all U.S. operations facilities. Not bad. But their outlook for the future is even better. 

Craig Cooing is VP and general manager of Boeing Space and Intelligence Systems and we’re impressed with the way he’s handling the announcement. “This accomplishment demonstrates our commitment to operational efficiency and environmental stewardship, but we have more work to do to further reduce our impact on the environment.”

Kudos Craig! Environmental accomplishments need to be celebrated but then we need to immediately ask what’s next or can we do more? We’re happy to see Boeing doing this and we hope more follow in their foot steps.