Earth Day: Reduce Your Water Footprint on a Shoestring

Want to save water this Earth Day but don’t have the budget for a bathroom makeover or landscaping redesign? Just take some of these 10 simple tips to heart and stop pouring money down the drain.

1. Teach an old faucet new tricks. If you’re not ready to invest in a new faucet, why not update your old one with a WaterSense labeled aerator? Aerators can cost as little as a few dollars.
2. Perfect your timing. Once the weather starts warming up, remember to water your garden during the cool morning hours to reduce evaporation.
3. Trash your tissues. Don’t flush them—one less flush per day can save nearly 1,300 gallons of water over the course of a year. That’s enough to wash about 32 loads of laundry! And speaking of laundry…
4. Lighten your load. Did you know that washing clothes is the second largest use of indoor water? Combine small loads to eliminate one load per week and you’ll save 2,100 gallons of water per year.
5. Grow green. To maintain a green, healthy lawn, you don’t need to water every day. To find out if your grass is thirsty, stick a screwdriver in the ground. If it goes in easily, don’t water!
6. Take a stand. Running a bath can require up to 70 gallons of water. But a five-minute shower? Just 10 to 25 gallons. So ditch the tub and stand up for water efficiency!
7. Defeat drips. Did you know that a faucet that leaks one drip per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons of water per year. Fixing leaks is often cheap and easy—and it could reduce your water bill by more than 10 percent!
8. Keep your (water) cool. Fill your glass with cool water from a pitcher in the fridge. This way, the water goes in your glass, not down the drain.
9. Get to know the natives. If you’re a gardener, find out which plants are native to your region. Climate-appropriate species require less water, so ask an expert at your local nursery which plants are homegrown and drought-tolerant.
10. Follow the money. If you think installing high-efficiency toilets or faucets will cost big bucks, you might be pleasantly surprised. Replacing old, inefficient plumbing fixtures with their WaterSense labeled counterparts can actually save you money in the long term.

For more water- and money-saving tips, check out EPA’s Earth Day page. And have a happy, thrifty Earth Day!