Facts about water conservation
Less than 2% of the Earth’s water supply is fresh water.
Of all the earth's water, 97% is salt water found in oceans and seas.
Only 1% of the earth's water is available for drinking water. Two percent is frozen.
The human body is about 75% water.
A person can survive about a month without food, but only 5 to 7 days without water.
Every day in the United States, we drink about 110 million gallons of water.
Landscaping accounts for about half the water Californians use at home. Showers account for another 18 percent, while toilets use about 20 percent.
Showering and bathing are the largest indoor uses (27%) of water domestically.
The average American uses 140-170 gallons of water per day.
If every household in America had a faucet that dripped once each second, 928 million gallons of water a day would leak away.
There are 7.48 gallons in a cubic foot of water. Therefore, 2000 cubic feet of water is 14,960 gallons.
An acre foot of water is about 326,000 gallons. One-half acre foot is enough to meet the needs of a typical family for a year. There are 7.48 gallons in a cubic foot of water.
It takes 3.3 acre feet of water to grow enough food for an average family for a year.
A leaky faucet can waste 100 gallons a day.
One flush of the toilet uses 6 ½ gallons of water.
An average bath requires 37 gallons of water.
An average family of four uses 881 gallons of water per week just by flushing the toilet.
The average 5-minute shower takes 15-25 gallons of water--around 40 gallons are used in 10 minutes.
Take short showers instead of baths. A full bathtub requires about 36 gallons of water.
You use about 5 gallons of water if you leave the water running while brushing your teeth.
If you water your grass and trees more heavily, but less often, this saves water and builds stronger roots.
Each person needs to drink about 2 ½quarts (80 ounces) of water every day.
Water your lawn only when it needs it. If you step on the grass and it springs back up when you move, it doesn’t need water. If it stays flat, it does need water.
Run your dishwasher and washing machine only when they are full.
When washing a car, use soap and water from a bucket. Use a hose with a shut-off nozzle for rinsing.
Never put water down the drain when there may be another use for it such as watering a plant or garden, or cleaning.
Avoid flushing the toilet unnecessarily. Dispose of tissues, insects and other such waste in the trash rather than the toilet.
When washing dishes by hand, fill one sink or basin with soapy water. Quickly rinse under a slow-moving stream from the faucet.
An automatic dishwasher uses 9 to 12 gallons of water while hand washing dishes can use up to 20 gallons.
Store drinking water in the refrigerator rather than letting the tap run every time you want a cool glass of water.
Water lawns during the early morning hours, or evening when temperatures and wind speed are the lowest. This reduces losses from evaporation.
Do not hose down your driveway or sidewalk. Use a broom to clean leaves and other debris from these areas. Using a hose to clean a driveway wastes hundreds of gallons of water.
Don’t leave the water running when brushing your teeth or shaving. Get in the habit of turning off the water when it’s not being used.
Use of bowl of water to clean fruits & vegetables rather than running water over them. You can reuse this for your house plants.
Public water suppliers process 38 billion gallons of water per day for domestic and public use.
Approximately 1 million miles of pipelines and aqueducts carry water in the U.S. & Canada. That's enough pipe to circle the earth 40 times.
About 800,000 water wells are drilled each year in the United States for domestic, farming, commercial, and water testing purposes.
More than 13 million households get their water from their own private wells and are responsible for treating and pumping the water themselves.
Industries released 197 million pounds of toxic chemicals into waterways in 1990.
You can refill an 8-oz glass of water approximately 15,000 times for the same cost as a six-pack of soda pop.
A dairy cow must drink four gallons of water to produce one gallon of milk.
300 million gallons of water are needed to produce a single day's supply of U.S. newsprint.
One inch of rainfall drops 7,000 gallons or nearly 30 tons of water on a 60' by 180' piece of land.
http://www.sscwd.org/tips.html
Water Conservation Tips
Toilets, Taps, Showers, Laundry, and Dishes
- 1994 was the year that federally mandated low-flow showerheads, faucets, and toilets started to appear on the scene in significant numbers.
- On average, 10 gallons per day of your water footprint (or 14% of your indoor use) is lost to leaks. Short of installing new water-efficient fixtures, one of the easiest, most effective ways to cut your footprint is by repairing leaky faucets and toilets.
- If you use a low-flow showerhead, you can save 15 gallons of water during a 10-minute shower.
- Every time you shave minutes off your use of hot water, you also save energy and keep dollars in your pocket.
- It takes about 70 gallons of water to fill a bathtub, so showers are generally the more water-efficient way to bathe.
- All of those flushes can add up to nearly 20 gallons a day down the toilet. If you still have a standard toilet, which uses close to 3.5 gallons a flush, you can save by retrofitting or filling your tank with something that will displace some of that water, such as a brick.
- Most front-loading machines are energy- and water-efficient, using just over 20 gallons a load, while most top-loading machines, unless they are energy-efficient, use 40 gallons per load.
- Nearly 22% of indoor home water use comes from doing laundry. Save water by making sure to adjust the settings on your machine to the proper load size.
- Dishwashing is a relatively small part of your water footprint—less than 2% of indoor use—but there are always ways to conserve. Using a machine is actually more water efficient than hand washing, especially if you run full loads.
- Energy Star dishwashers use about 4 gallons of water per load, and even standard machines use only about 6 gallons. Hand washing generally uses about 20 gallons of water each time.
Yards and Pools
- Nearly 60% of a person's household water footprint can go toward lawn and garden maintenance.
- Climate counts—where you live plays a role in how much water you use, especially when it comes to tending to a yard.
- The average pool takes 22,000 gallons of water to fill, and if you don't cover it, hundreds of gallons of water per month can be lost due to evaporation.
Diet
- The water it takes to produce the average American diet alone—approximately 1,000 gallons per person per day—is more than the global average water footprint of 900 gallons per person per day for diet, household use, transportation, energy, and the consumption of material goods.
- That quarter pounder is worth more than 30 average American showers. One of the easiest ways to slim your water footprint is to eat less meat and dairy. Another way is to choose grass-fed, rather than grain-fed, since it can take a lot of water to grow corn and other feed crops.
- A serving of poultry costs about 90 gallons of water to produce. There are also water costs embedded in the transportation of food (gasoline costs water to make). So, consider how far your food has to travel, and buy local to cut your water footprint.
- Pork costs water to produce, and traditional pork production—to make your sausage, bacon, and chops—has also been the cause of some water pollution, as pig waste runs into local water sources.
- On average, a vegan, a person who doesn't eat meat or dairy, indirectly consumes nearly 600 gallons of water per day less than a person who eats the average American diet.
- A cup of coffee takes 55 gallons of water to make, with most of that H2O used to grow the coffee beans.
Electricity, Fuel Economy, and Airline Travel
- The water footprint of your per-day electricity use is based on state averages. If you use alternative energies such as wind and solar, your footprint could be less. (The use of biofuels, however, if they are heavily irrigated, could be another story.) You would also get points, or a footprint reduction, for using energy-star appliances and taking other energy-efficiency measures.
- Washing a car uses about 150 gallons of water, so by washing less frequently you can cut back your water use.
- A gallon of gasoline takes nearly 13 gallons of water to produce. Combine your errands, car pool to work, or take public transportation to reduce both your energy and water use.
- Flying from Los Angeles to San Francisco, about 700 miles round-trip, could cost you more than 9,000 gallons of water, or enough for almost 2,000 average dishwasher loads.
- A cross-country airplane trip (about 6,000 miles) could be worth more than 1,700 standard toilet flushes.
- Traveling from Chicago to Istanbul is just about 10,000 miles round trip, costing enough water to run electricity in the average American home for one person for more than five years.
Industry—Apparel, Home Furnishings, Electronics, and Paper
- According to recent reports, nearly 5% of all U.S. water withdrawals are used to fuel industry and the production of many of the material goods we stock up on weekly, monthly, and yearly.
- It takes about 100 gallons of water to grow and process a single pound of cotton, and the average American goes through about 35 pounds of new cotton material each year. Do you really need that additional T-shirt?
- One of the best ways to conserve water is to buy recycled goods, and to recycle your stuff when you’re done with it. Or, stick to buying only what you really need.
- The water required to create your laptop could wash nearly 70 loads of laundry in a standard machine.
- Recycling a pound of paper, less than the weight of your average newspaper, saves about 3.5 gallons of water. Buying recycled paper products saves water too, as it takes about six gallons of water to produce a dollar worth of paper.
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/water-conservation-tips/
