Dropping Your Drip and Water Conservation

Think about this for a minute: Each of us has a direct, visible, tangible impact on water use in our everyday lives. Water is something we need, touch, see, feel, drink, and use every single day, and each of us has opportunities multiple times throughout the day to conserve this precious resource. 

Here are some reminders about how to conserve water. Read a more complete list on the Drop Your Own Drip campaign website.

Kitchen:

• No dishwasher? No problem! Instead of leaving your tap running while washing each dish, plug up both sinks and fill them with water instead – one soapy, one for rinsing.
• Same goes for rinsing veggies as with dishes: fill up a bowl of water to wash your veggies instead of wasting a bunch of it when you keep the tap running.
• Use fewer dishes so you don’t have to wash as many.

Bathroom:

• Turn off the tap when brushing teeth, shaving, washing your face and hands. 
• Take fewer showers. Going to be home all day on the weekend? Maybe you don't really need a shower that day. Be conscious of when and why you're showering.
• Or take shorter showers. Reduce your shower time by 30 seconds each day for a week, or aim to take no longer than 3 minute showers.
• Place a large rock or a milk container full of sand in the tank of your toilet. Placing objects in your toilet’s tank displaces water, thus reducing the amount used per flush.

Laundry: 

• When hauling down your stuff to the laundry room, make sure it’s worth it. Wash your clothes only when you have a full load. 
  
• Reducing the frequency of your loads of laundry will save some serious H2O. You can wear those jeans one more time.
• Wash your clothes in cold water. Simple as pushing a button.

For students who live in the apartments on campus, get ready for a super fun, sustainability and water-saving competition starting February 4! Drop Your Own Drip, a campaign of the Student Environmental Center, is a student-led competition in which campus apartment residents receive simulated monthly water statements, which educate all on-campus apartment residents about their monthly water-use while encouraging conservation.

In addition to reducing overall water use, each resident is challenged to use no more than the target-level of daily water-use of 20 gallons per person. The competition will reward the college residents from one of the ten main apartment complexes on campus who successfully reduce water-use per capita the greatest percentage.

Find out more on the website or by contacting Sarah Angulo.