15 Ways You Can Conserve Water At Home

You must’ve heard about the water shortage in Chennai. Here’s a post from Leonardo DiCaprio to give you a quick recap.

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#Regram #RG @bbcnews: “Only rain can save Chennai from this situation.” A well completely empty, and a city without water. The southern Indian city of Chennai is in crisis, after the four main water reservoirs ran completely dry. The acute water shortage has forced the city to scramble for urgent solutions and residents have to stand in line for hours to get water from government tanks. As the water levels depleted, hotels and restaurants started to shut down temporarily, and the air con was turned off in the city’s metro. Officials in the city continue to try and find alternative sources of water – but the community continue to pray for rain. Tap the link in our bio to read more about Chennai’s water crisis. (📸 Getty Images) #chennai #watercrisis #india #bbcnews

A post shared by Leonardo DiCaprio (@leonardodicaprio) on Jun 25, 2019 at 1:42pm PDT

So why should you be bothered about water shortage in Chennai? Well, India is heading towards a water crisis and by 2020, it is said that 21 Indian cities will run out of groundwater.

But all is not lost, every drop matters and small changes that you make to your lifestyle can help save many litres of water. Here are 15 ways to help prevent a future water shortage by conserving water at home.

Turn off the tap when you’re brushing your teeth. Water comes out of a tap at around 9 litres a minute. Turn the tap off after you wet your brush and turn it back on when it is time to rinse.
Turn off the tap while washing your hands. You don’t need water while scrubbing your hands. Save a few litres of water by turning the tap off after you wet your hands until you need to rinse.
Check your house for leaks. Fix dripping faucets and watch out for toilet tank leaks. Even a small drip can waste up to 180 litres of water a day.

Use your washing machine only when necessary. Wash clothes in your washing machine only when you have a full load. You might also want to consider upgrading to a front-loading washing machine: When compared to a top loading washing machine, an efficient front loading machine saves around 180 litres of water per wash.
Upgrade your shower-heads. Get low-flow shower-heads that dispense 9 litres of water a minute. Better still, try using a bucket of water instead. This simple switch could lead to saving 3000 litres a month.
Reduce your shower time. An average person takes 5-7 minutes in the shower. Reduce your shower time to 1-2 minutes and you will save up to 2500 litres a month.

Flush the toilet only when necessary. Don’t use the toilet to flush tissues, insects, and other waste.
Don’t rinse vegetables under a tap. You can save up to 750 litres of water every month by rinsing vegetables and fruits in a filled pot or pan instead.
Soak your cookware before washing. Immersing your cookware before washing will help you scrape and clean them with little water.
Reuse extra water. If there is water left over after cooking, say pasta, for example, reuse it for watering your plants. If it is water mixed with chemicals that would be harmful to plants, use it to clean your toilet.

Reuse towels multiple times. Adopt this habit when at home and while staying in hotels.
Use a bucket to wash your car. Don’t use a hose to spray and rinse your car, or even go to a car wash. Use a bucket of water and cleaning solution to clean your car by hand.
Use barrels and tanks to collect rainwater. Kerala gets quite a bit of rainfall and it is important that we harvest as much as we can.
Don’t maintain a lawn. Lawns might look pretty, but they drink a lot of water. Give the landscaped lawns a miss. Instead, you could opt for a xeriscape landscape.