Saving water means doing more with less water, and using only the amount you need. For example, you could water your plants with the same water you used to wash your vegetables.
It also means saving money! When you retrofit your household appliances with water-saving components, you’re doing yourself a favour by saving on your water bill.
More importantly, conserving water is one of the steps you can take for a more sustainable future. Want to learn how to conserve water already? Here’s what you can do to start reducing your consumption today.
1) Fix leaks
The most common areas that experience water leakages are faucets, toilets, and showers.
While you might think that drips of water will hardly amount to anything, a leaking faucet could waste as much as 20 gallons of water a day. A leaky toilet? 200 gallons a day.
When you check for water leakages and fix them, you can actually save up to 10% on your water bill. That’s about the cost of 12 plates of nasi lemak!
2) Turn off your tap when it’s not in use
Sounds pretty obvious, doesn’t it? But it’s always the simplest task that we often overlook.
Whether you’re brushing your teeth, lathering your hands with soap, or shampooing your hair, you don’t have to leave the water running.
According to a 2013 UN report, Malaysians use an average of 220 to 240 litres of water per day, which is more than the recommended daily average of 150 litres!
So please, don’t become a part of those statistics, and consciously put in a little more effort to turn the tap on and off.
3) Use water-efficient appliances
Water-efficient appliances help you save water and ultimately, money. You could consider changing up some of these old fixtures at home, for products that help you conserve water:
- Toilet
- Bathroom sink faucet
- Showerhead
- Dishwasher
For example, you could buy a water-saving showerhead with a 1.5 gallon per minute (GPM) flow rate.
This saves 40% more water than most showerheads. You could also consider investing in a water harvesting system and energy-efficient dishwashers.
4) Take shorter showers
Each time you take a 10-minute shower, you use up about 50 litres of water. So letting the shower run for a minute as you shampoo your hair wastes much more water than you think.
If it helps, imagine yourself without water to shower over the next few days, because you’ve used up all of it today.
Here’s a fun fact: Showers save more water than baths, and are actually healthier for your skin! Too much water during a bath, and even long showers, can strip your skin of its natural oils.
5) Recycle your water
Recycling water doesn’t have to be a messy or unhygienic affair. For example, you can use mop water to flush the toilet bowl.
You could also collect rainwater in buckets and use them to wash your car. Or, you could use excess water from drinking cups to water your plants.
While all this might sound like quite the hassle at first, recycling water gets easier once you get into the hang of it.
The other weird ways to save water
Want to hear more tips to save a few extra cents? Here are just some of the quirky and downright weird ones we’ve read on the net (we don’t hold any responsibility for your reputation if you try these!):
1) Lick your plates clean
Why clean your dishes with a dishwasher when you can just lick your favourite honey mustard sauce off the plate?
Lick them clean, then wipe again with a paper towel. If you do this for all three meals, you can save 60 litres of water a day.
2) Skip showers
Or you could just take a dip in your nearest swimming pool.
There are other alternatives to showering, such as using dry shampoo for your hair or hand sanitiser for your whole body.
If you’re dripping with sooo much sweat, simply wipe or fan yourself dry. You could also try cleaning yourself with just a basin of water.
But if you really must take a shower, ask two other people along each time.
3) Swim to work
Many Malaysians go back and forth to Singapore, mostly via the roads. To stand out from the crowd, you could try swimming to and from work as a form of morning exercise!
Not only will it help you save water from your usual morning shower and nightly baths, you’ll also get to skip the morning jam at the customs complex.
Jokes aside, water conservation not only leads to greater household savings, it also goes a long way in saving our planet. Let’s not take our water supply for granted. Clean water is, after all, a finite resource.
Don’t wait till there’s a water cut coming up (happens on a yearly basis in Malaysia!), before you start scrambling to save water. But in the event you’re caught unprepared, check out our Coping With Water Disruption: A Handy How-To Guide!
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