Torrents to Trickles - Water Conservation Today
Well, it's true, you can't make local municipalities get a brain, nor can you force your landlord to replace all the toilets in your apartment building....or can you? Hey, you never know! Maybe if your toilet leaks, you could ask that it be replaced with a low-flow. If you lobby long enough, maybe you CAN influence your government to make environmentally sound choices. Go ahead, get together with your community and give it a try. What have you got to lose? If we all get together as a community and do our little part to conserve water, it could go a long way to securing a drinkable future for the generations to come - despite the climate changes that we may have to endure. You can't make others participate, but it's got to start somewhere - why not with you?
So, here are a few water-saving tips for the renters, the frugal and the downright cheap (hey, I don't mind admitting it) environmentally conscious out there.
Toilet
A leaky toilet can waste up to 200 gallons of water a day. But when most toilets leak, they don't usually leak all over the floor - the tank usually leaks into the bowl, so you may not even realize your toilet is leaking. Here's how to find out:
Put a healthy squirt of food colouring in the TANK of the toilet. Wait 30 minutes (don't flush it) and peek in the BOWL. If the water in the bowl has changed colour then your tank is leaking. Flush as soon as you know it is leaking so you don't stain the toilet green or pink or whatever colour you've chosen.
If you know it isn't leaking but would like to reduce the amount of water it uses, try this trick:
Place 1-2 bricks or 1-2 old water bottles filled with tap water in the toilet TANK. This uses displacement to fool the tank sensors. Basically it is the same as if you had a glass half full of water and kept adding small stones - eventually, the water would overflow. With the bricks or bottles in the tank, the tank fills with less water. But don't get too carried away with this. Some of those old toilets need a good gush of water to get everything down and a backed up toilet wastes even more water.
This doesn't work for everyone, but for those of you who are not too squeamish, try
Latest Articles