Thursday, October 16, 2008

Reducing Water

Every once in a while I participate in Thrifty Green Thursday, a great carnival where contributors share tips that combine saving money and helping the environment. A few weeks back someone* wrote about using a bucket to catch shower water and then using the water for plants.

My first reaction was ick. It seemed cumbersome and like more effort than I was willing to make. But over the following week I thought about it a few times. If your shower is like mine it takes a minute or two to heat up. After 2 weeks I decided to give it a try.

I use one of the buckets I got from the grocery store bakery, aim the shower head at the bucket, and wait for the water to warm up. When the water is almost warm I put the bucket just outside of the shower. Every 3-4 showers yields 2.5 gallons- which I think is a crazy amount. Instead of going down the drain the water goes to the veggies I’m growing in containers and keeping the worm bin moist.

So there’s my I tried it. Thanks to whoever wrote the original post for sharing a tip that is saving me gallons of water!

*If you wrote the original post please let me know so I can link to you. I just looked back but couldn’t find it.

5 comments:

Rebecca said...

This is one of those ideas I hear about every so often but have never tried myself. I wash lettuce/spinach/greens in my salad spinner and dump that extra water on my plants. After doing that, they don't really need to be watered again until the next time I wash greens. Does anyone have any ideas for using shower water on something other than plants?

That said, I admire you for collecting the water and putting it to good use! Thanks for joining us for Thrifty Green Thursday!

Joy said...

My mom does this same thing and we did write a post about it awhile back, but it was months ago. Someday I fantasize about our grey water being drained directly into our sprinkler system. In Canada they've actually invented a system that does just that--without any buckets! Life's been a bit crazy around here lately so I have to admit that I haven't been hauling out water buckets, but I think it's a great idea! Thanks so much for joining our Thrifty Green Thursday!

Lisa Nelsen-Woods said...

I do this and I've mentioned it in the comments on a couple of other blogs (maybe in a TT post) but I don't think I did it as an actual post yet.

When I first heard about this I thought it was too crunchy for me too. But after I had a bucket of water leftover from testing a showerhead I dumped it on my veggies because I forget to water them. Then I realized that this would be a good way to remember to water the plants and save some water too.

Mrs. Gray's Class said...

This is something I can definitely try - I've heard of people using grey water for their toilet water, but not too sure how it works.

Cathy said...

I've been trying to water my plants with my kids sippy cup water. It's awful how much clean drinking water we waste.