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YOU Can Help Conserve (save) Water... |
Guess how much water you use each day... One bucketful (10 litres)? 5 buckets? 10 buckets? |
The average New Zealander uses |
| Water is precious. the water we use often comes from streams and rivers where many other plants and animals depend upon it. We must be careful with our water use, especially in summer, so that we don't run the streams dry and damage the natural world. |
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How YOU can save water. (Not by staying dirty!) |
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Flushing the toilet... toilets are the biggest users of water in the house. New toilets have dual-flush systems, so you can choose a big or smaller flush. Every time you use the half-flush button, you save about 5 litres of water! |
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Reduce the amount of water you flush... Old toilets use a large volume of water for each flush. You can reduce the volume of water in the cistern by putting in a plastic drink bottle filled with water. Screw the bottle lid on tightly. Be careful to put the bottle away from the ball cock. Now each time you flush, you will use a drink bottle full less water - great! |
Does your toilet leak? Check by putting a few drops of food colouring in the cistern. Leave for 10 minutes without flushing. If the colour gets in to the toilet bowl, the cistern is leaking and wasting water, and it will need to be fixed. |
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Shower instead of having a bath... A shower uses less water than filling a bath - as long as you don't stand in the shower too long! New low-flow shower heads... They use less than half as much water as a normal shower head. Because they use less hot water, they save electricity (and money) as well. |
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Washing the car... If you wash the car at your place, ask the car owner to move the car on to the grass - that way the water will soak into the soil, rather than washing all the suds down into the storm water drain. (Storm water drains go straight to streams, rivers and the ocean.) |
Watering the garden... The best times to water the garden are early in the morning or in the evening - not when the sun is brightest. This way the plant has time to soak up the water, rather than letting the sun dry up all the water. |
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