Published by Martha Danly under Uncategorized

In the US, we turn on a faucet to get a seemingly endless stream of clean, affordable water. That’s easy. So what’s the problem? Americans use too much water, way too much.

San Francisco architect Eric Corey Freed opened his first lecture in this fall’s class on Practical Applications of Sustainable Design at UC Berkeley Extension with these eye-opening facts about water use:

• The average person in the US consumes 495,000 gallons of water per year, compared to only 193,000 gallons in Japan and 153,000 in Germany
• Shifting the comparison to developing countries, the gap is even wider-the average household in the US uses 293 gallons per day versus only 5 in Africa

We all know that water is the core element of our ecosystems and life on Earth. So it stands to reason that our efforts to make our lives more green must also focus on making them more blue, too. What are we doing to change our habits around watering our gardens, flushing our toilets, showering, washing dishes, and using bottled water?

In her recent keynote presentation at the Bioneers conference, Alexandra Cousteau, granddaughter of legendary French explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, described water as the “earth’s great story-teller”, the arena in which the impacts of climate change are being felt most strongly. Through her nonprofit Blue Legacy, she is raising the awareness of water as one of the defining issues of our century. Alexandra has also teamed up with brother Philippe Cousteau, Jr. to form EarthEcho International, building awareness about water issues through the media and reaching younger audiences by working with VANS Warped Tour.

We need young, inspirational leaders like the Cousteaus, and we need to take action ourselves. Let’s take a look at three things we can do around the house.

First, measure your water fooprint at H₂O Conserve. Their H₂O Calculator is very simple and offers excellent tips throughout. You’ll learn something new. I did-our uncovered swimming pool is our number one water waster. Something besides the economy and the election to talk about at the dinner table tonight!

Second, consider converting your low-flow toilets into dual-flush toilets. If you’ve traveled in Europe, you’ve seen them already-you press one button for liquid waste, another button for solid waste. Available in January 2009, the Perfect Flush^TM from Brondell is a dual-flush upgrade to existing toilets. This is a no-brainer since 40% of indoor water use is for toilets, and dual-flush gives you 50% water savings right away.

Third, as a technology person I’m very impressed by a cool product called WeatherTRAK® from HydroPoint Data Systems. WeatherTRAK automatically monitors and manages landscape irrigation, adjusting your irrigation schedule based on your soil and local weather conditions. It combines information delivered wirelessly from 40,000 weather stations with readings of the actual moisture level in your soil, then delivers only the water your garden needs.

Since 80% of all landscape damage is due to overwatering, you’re taking better care of your garden, in addition to lowering your water bills and doing your part to conserve water.

So next time you turn on the tap, abandon your comfort with the status quo. Re-think how you use water, then find another way to reduce. We’ll be blogging about how to reuse water with greywater solutions soon. Because going green involves going blue, too.