Our Water Conservation Efforts

I am trying to teach my kids that it is vital to conserve water. Water consumption is a HUGE issue, especially here in the desert. We have a 10 minute shower rule. Rylee, a former 45 minute showerer, is now down to about 4 minutes. It helped that I got her a 2in1 shampoo/conditioner. She is a little anal about making sure the conditioner is out.

I found this water consumption calculator at http://www.csgnetwork.com/waterusagecalc.html. After plugging in our numbers I was pleasantly surprised to see the results : Every year, your household uses 60955 gallons per capita LESS than the Desert Water Agency per capita water useage. NICE ! But we can do more.

We have a low-water use plants in our backyard and although they do need water, we only water about once a week and it’s on a drip system. It also helps that our backyard ground cover is dirt or mud depending on the time of year. Chuck has been trying to install a gutter system that catches and stores rainwater. He then wants to hook up an irrigation system to it. So far, it seems like it is going to cost us around $2000, so it’s earmarked for the future, hopefully soon.

Zoe on her raft in the dirt. You can see what I mean, we have nothing but dirt.


You get a peek off to the left of our low water bush. Naked Tali butt is a bonus :)

Other ways we save water is by teaching the kids to turn off the faucet in between wetting the toothbrush and rinsing. We do not follow the rule, If it’s yellow let is settle, if it’s brown, flush it down. It is too confusing for the little kids who don’t want to use the potty if someone else left a present in it. Then we have the pee pee dance while they wait for it to flush and more times then not, pee on the floor for me to clean up. Maybe when they are older...

Our toilets are also low flush (use 1.5 gallons as opposed to 5), however, when there is poo, sometimes it takes more then one flush. It still saves a ton of water. Out showers have a little piece in the head that lessens the water usage. I’ve had it for almost 5 years and I don’t notice that we have less pressure.

I know we are doing a somewhat good job of conserving our precious water, but I can’t help but feel like it’s not enough. My mother has a gray water system where the water from one side of the kitchen sink goes to her lemon tree. She also has 4 ponds, (quite astounding in the desert), that are actually rainwater collection receptacles. They are pretty cool.

Melissa and I are about to go to Las Vegas for our big LolliDoo launch and the waste there is hard for me to swallow. I am sure I am going to be a blogging fool telling you all of Vegas’s dirty little waste secrets.