One of the biggest water wasters in the home - the toilet.

Look for the WaterSense label

Let’s begin with the biggest offenders, starting inside your home. According to the Alliance for Water Efficiency, toilets are the biggest culprits, accounting for approximately 26.7% of the water used daily inside the house. By simply switching over to high-efficiency models of toilets, homeowners can make a huge dent in this number. The best part—unlike “low flow” models of previous years, today’s high efficiency toilets (HETs) are designed, tested, and proven to take care of business with very little water. Some models (look for the EPA WaterSense Label) actually use less than one gallon per flush!

Use a water efficient shower head

Showers are another area in the home where water is wasted, responsible for about 16.8% of household daily water usage. I used to think that these numbers somehow didn’t apply to me. My morning showers seemed way too short in my eyes—I literally used them as a way to wake myself up for the day. I was in for a rude awakening after I received a water flow measurement bag at a green education event and slipped it under my shower head to see how I was doing. My much-beloved “rain type” shower head was dousing me with 100 gallons of water each time I showered! I had two choices to save water: switch my shower head to a high efficiency model, or shorten the time I was in the shower. In the end I did both and I learned an important lesson in doing so. Sometimes the least expensive and most effective way to conserve resources is by simply changing our habits!

Fix that leaky faucet and save gallons!

How about that dripping faucet you keep meaning to fix? How does it measure up  on the “wasted water” scale?  While you certainly may be losing a few gallons a day, it’s worth taking a look at your faucet as a whole. Faucet use adds up to about 15.7% of a household’s daily water usage. Did you know that simply by installing aerators on your bathroom and kitchen faucets, you can save up to a gallon of water per minute, per faucet? What’s even better—it’s a change no one will notice! That doesn’t mean to ignore those leaks, though. In fact, any leak stopped helps the cause.

In addition to those obvious sink leaks (and who doesn’t hate that annoying dripping sound?), there are less obvious leaks lurking in your home, wasting your precious water. The easiest of these leaks to detect on your own is a leaky flapper in your toilet. Here’s a test:  open the tank of your toilet and put in a few drops of food coloring. Go ahead, be creative! Mix colors for some extra fun! Replace the tank lid and wait a good 5-10 minutes or so. When the time is up, check the bowl of the toilet. If any color has made its way down into the bowl, you have a leaky flapper. Unfortunately, this means that your toilet is wasting water. Fortunately, replacing the flapper on your toilet is an easy fix. Simply take the model name and date of manufacture of your toilet (stamped inside the tank) to your local plumbing supply house and they will help you find a replacement flapper. Note: do not waste your money on a “universal” toilet flapper, as it will not fit your toilet the way the proper part is made to.

Keep in mind that any amount of water that we save, inside or outside our homes and businesses, is a step in the right direction. Conservation is not a single act, but a process towards a common goal. Make use of the resources around you- both products and professionals- who can help you find water-saving solutions that are comfortable for your lifestyle. Perhaps the most important thing of all to remember is that any effort to save Earth’s precious resources is worthwhile. After all, there is no perfect shade of green.

John Smith is the Vice-President of  R2K Plumbing, The Arizona Green Plumbers,* and the author of Plunging Into Green, One Plumber’s Journey to Becoming a Water Hugger. John was named the 2010 and 2011 Green Plumber of the Year and is the host of The Arizona Green Plumber Show on BlogTalk Radio.  For more water-saving tips, follow The Arizona Green Plumbers on Facebook.

*GreenPlumbers USA®
GreenPlumbers is a national training and licensing program to advance sustainable plumbing practices that will use less energy, less water and fewer chemicals. Savings within new and existing buildings can be from efficient heating, cooling, and hot water systems, as well as from water-efficient fixtures and appliances, and by the harvesting and use of alternative water sources. Be sure to check with your power or water utility to see if rebates are available for the purchase of efficient products.

Learn more about Green Plumbers and other organizations involved in water conservation efforts on the Water – Use It Wisely Resources page.

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.