Conserving Water...

FACT: In the year 2020, 2/3 of the world's people will not have access to drinking water. I firmly believe that THIS IS A PROBLEM, and that we (especially as Christians) need to re-evaluate our habits and lifestyles and make changes where necessary in order to help preserve the earth's precious and limited water supply.

Here are some good, easy, and pretty inexpensive ways to conserve water:

Run the dishwasher and the washing machine only when they are full.

Don't prerinse dishes before loading the dishwasher. You'll save as much as 20 gallons a load, or 6,500 gallons per year. Our tests show prerinsing doesn't improve cleaning. Or, use the rinse-and-hold dishwasher feature for a less-than-full load before later in the week running the full load. The rinse-and-hold option uses about 2 gallons of water.

When your dish load is small, fill the sink or basin and wash dishes by hand. Place soapy dishes on a rack, and spray rinse.

Wash vegetables and fruits in a bowl or basin using a vegetable brush; don't let the water run.
Use recycled water on plants. Sources: water left from boiled eggs, tea kettles, and washed vegetables; dehumidifier condensate.

Investigate using waste water from the washing machine, bathtub, or sink on outdoor, inedible plants. States vary in their approach to so-called gray-water use. New York, for example, bans it out of concern that the byproducts of cleaning, say, can contaminate soil. Check with your state or municipality's department of environmental protection for details. (We don't recommend using gray water to wash the car; small particles in the water may scratch the paint.)

Steam vegetables instead of boiling. Besides using less water, you'll retain more vitamins in the food.

Chill drinking water in the refrigerator instead of running the faucet until the water is cold.

Defrost food in the refrigerator, not in a pan of water on the counter or in the sink. Besides saving water, it's less likely to breed bacteria.

Fix toilet leaks. Plumbing leaks as a whole account for 14 percent of water consumed in the home, according to a study sponsored by the American Water Works Association, an industry trade group. One cause is toilet leaks, which often go unnoticed. To determine whether your older toilet is leaking, add food coloring to the tank water and let it sit 15 minutes. If it appears in the bowl, there's a leak.

Don't use your toilet as a wastebasket.

Turn off the faucet when brushing teeth. Faucets can spout 2 to 3 gallons per minute.

Time your showers to keep them short; this can cut 5 to 7 gallons per minute with an old-style showerhead. Or turn off the water while lathering.

Displace some water in the toilet tank of an older toilet with a capped plastic liter bottle filled with water.

When taking a bath, close the drain before turning on the water. And fill it half as full as you usually do; you could save 10 to 15 gallons.

Avoid flushing the toilet unnecessarily. Dispose of tissues, insects and other such waste in the trash rather than the toilet.

Operate automatic dishwashers and clothes washers only when they are fully loaded.

(click here for more info on ways to conserve water)

Another great site to check out is www.responsibleshopper.org
This site had an extensive list of stores, companies, and corporations from across the nation, and has thorough evaluations of each, paying attention to treatment of employees, testing on animals, and how the envirnonment is treated by each company. I especially like how all of the brands and companies each corporation owns is listed on the bottom of each page, so if you decide to boycott a certain company - Nestle, for example - you realize that you will also have to boycott Carnation, not to mention many other brands of products.

It probably sounds like I am becoming a left-wing, tree-hugging, boycotting-happy hippie, out here, but I don't care. (and to a certain extent, I am!) I just hope that we in the US can start to have more of a global mindset and think critically about many things, from the brands of food, clothing, and cars we buy, to how we are using and misusing our earth's natural resources. One thing that I was especially ashamed of while we were discussing the issue of water in class was the fact that I rinsed 3,000 tie-dye one summer. 2-3 gallons of water are used for ONE minute a faucet is running. How many hours did I stand at a sink with the faucet running full blast?! Not only that, I was rinsing toxic, carcogenic dye into the earth! All that in the name of pleasing family campers?! I am forced to ask myself if it is really worth it, while brothers and sisters in Christ in Africa are dying of cholera because they don't have any clean drinking water. Nobody should be dying of cholera in this day and age, nobody. So then, what do we do??