Climate change, and the extreme weather that comes with it, means the need to take care of our most precious resource is greater than ever. From human life to wildlife and our environment – water is essential.
While we’ve all got used to recycling plastics, cardboard or rubbish at home we don’t often think about reusing water – but it can really help make a difference when it comes to protecting our planet and purse strings.
Three reasons to use water twice
Water is essential for life
Where would we be without water? If you really think about it, we use water in many different ways every day of our lives. From cooking, cleaning and drinking to farming and growing crops – It’s an essential part of our existence, and without it there’d be no life on our planet in the first place.
Take trees for example. They drink up to 100 litres of rain water a day – using almost as much as the average person in Kent who uses around 150 litres of water a day for everything from the morning shower to brushing teeth before going to bed.
Water is precious
Though we may think of water as an endless resource, worldwide 97% of the earth’s water can be found in oceans and 2% is frozen. This leaves just 1% found in rivers, lakes and underground aquifers which can be sustainability converted into safe, clean drinking water. With our climate changing and the world’s population increasing, we need to protect our most precious resource to make sure there’s enough for the future.
Using less water means saving energy and money
We know energy prices are going up and a great way to help keep your costs down is to save water where you can. For example, taking shorter showers means using less energy to heat your water. Small changes like this all add up and help save some pennies while being kinder to the planet.
Three top ways to use water twice
Save the rain
Southern England is one of the driest regions in the UK but even here it’s possible to collect 24,000 litres (or 150 water butts) on wet days each year. There’s lots of ways you can do it, from installing a water butt to simply dotting buckets or watering cans around the garden. You can then use all that lovely H20 to water your garden on dry days.
Although our tap water is of the highest quality, plants don’t need perfectly clean water – in fact they much prefer rainwater as it’s just the right PH level for them. Switching from mains to rain can also save you money. The average hose pipe costs around £1.50 an hour to run. It might not seem like a lot but every little helps!
Use water on your garden and for wildlife
Why not use your leftover bedtime water on the garden while you put out some fresh water for birds or our prickly hedgehog friends? Small steps like this means we can give back some of the water we have to our local environment.
Make the most of cooking water
Don’t throw away your unsalted cooking water, use it to water your plants or garden instead. When you boil food such as pasta or vegetables many of the micronutrients are boiled off into the water. For example, calcium from hard boiled eggs, or iron from spinach.
This means once the water cools down, not only will you provide your plants with a nice drink, they will also get a bit of much needed fertilizer from the nutrients within the water. Don’t worry if you’ve got too much water leftover as you can pop it in a covered jug in the fridge to use next time you need to water you plants.
Click below for more top tips, water saving freebies and find out what we’re doing to protect the environment and our water resources.
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