13 Ways To Save Water At Home In 2023

By Ross Robinson

As a homeowner, you may be searching for ways to lower your monthly utilities. Water conservation has always been one way to do it. But today, saving water is becoming more of a necessity than a cost-saving measure. It’s now critical to ensure we all have enough.

Recent droughts and water cleanliness issues are making accessing adequate amounts of clean water more difficult, and unfortunately, the problem is growing. Climate change combined with current usage volumes will strain resources further each year.

Water conservation has grown from a seasonal necessity to a year-round commitment.

Doing the work efficiently and in a cost-effective manner requires everyone’s individual participation. The good news is that there are easy ways to reduce water usage at home while lowering water and heating bills simultaneously. This article explains how to save water at home. We cover everything from home products to lifestyle changes that minimize water waste. We also dive into why this work is so important right now.

Water Conservation: It’s More Important Than You May

Know

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. population has doubled since 1970. At the same time, the usage of water has tripled. Additionally, 40 states expect water shortages by 2024, and scientists warn that many areas of the U.S. could see water supplies reduced by as much as one-third in as little as 50 years. It’s clear that water usage needs to change now and over the long term.

The issue of water scarcity also extends beyond U.S. borders. Water shortages are increasing worldwide due to hotter temperatures, less snowmelt, overuse of aquifers, and less waterfall. Water limits threaten crop production and farm profitability while affecting businesses and lives closer to home with higher water bills and increased water bans. It even leads to something that you may not think about: increased health risks.

According to Scientific American:

Damns, piping, and water treatment facilities are reaching their life spans, affecting water availability and purity.

Drought areas create higher concentrations of chemicals in stored water.

Sudden increases in water from massive storms caused by climate change add more sediment to water than treatment facilities can handle, resulting in additional notices to boil and ration water.

Climate change has brought more fires that deposit ash and debris into reservoirs, reducing the amount of usable water.

Climate change is also affecting the country’s dry and wet areas. According to National

Geographic:

Dryer areas of the country have less water.

Wetter areas of the country experience water surges so large that they’re difficult to capture.

Snowmelt occurs earlier in the year, filling rivers quicker in the spring and providing less water further into the year.

Additionally, increased temperatures and population numbers will only exacerbate the problem further. Simply put, there is a decreasing supply and rising demand for water, and it won’t end soon.

The Water Crisis in the United States

Water shortages are increasing globally but seeing them closer to home puts the issue in perspective. Here are just a few examples of issues in the U.S.

The Colorado River, which feeds water to seven states, has shrunk 20% over the last two decades and will shrink an additional 9% per each degree of warming.

California is in its driest period on record.

Arizona is under permanent drought conditions.

South Florida aquifers are being overused, leading to saltier water.

Cities across the country are experiencing issues of tainted water, including:

Houston, Texas

Jackson, Mississippi

Honolulu, Hawaii

Las Vegas, New Mexico

Baltimore, Maryland dishwasher simultaneously, and make sure they have full loads

Minimize garbage disposal usage by composting

Place a rubber brick in the toilet to limit the amount of water being flushed

Don’t clean your driveway or patio with water

Use water strategically for your landscaping. How? Check out our article devoted to intelligent lawn care.

More Involved Changes That

Boost Your Conservation Further

Increase mulch in lawns

Fighting these issues costs money — and a lot of it. At the same time, expanding on traditional solutions like reservoirs and mining aquifers have environmental and fiscal costs.

Desalination works, but doing the work comes at twice the cost of handling freshwater. Moving water from wet to dry areas is expensive and sometimes too complex.

At the same time, providing clean water in highly affected areas, such as Jackson, Mississippi, is expensive, logistically challenging, and time-consuming.

U.S. dams were built to last 50 years, but their median age today is 60 years, and many conditions of the dams are still unrated.

There are 850 water main failures daily nationwide, each requiring repair that comes at a cost.

13 Lifestyle Changes You Can

Make at Home to Save Water

Adopting ways to conserve water is key for reducing water loss and minimizing the spending needed for improved water storage and conveyance, and the proof is in the data. Here you can see how much water is used in your state and how water conservation by all your state’s residents drastically reduces usage.

How do you do it in your backyard? It’s easier and cheaper than you may think. In fact, many solutions cost no money at all. Here are some of the best strategies for saving water in the home:

Changes You Can Do Today

Use cold water for laundry

Take showers instead of baths

Check and fix leaky faucets and pipes monthly/quarterly

Stop using your toilet as a garbage can

Purposefully boil water to decrease waste (limit excess water) Run your clothes and

Coalition Takes Biden to Task for Falling Short on Voting Rights...continued

noted Native American voters are “uniquely situated to benefit from this executive order.”

Although “Native Americans do not regularly interact with state agencies, such as the DMV, where many Americans are provided with the most meaningful registration opportunity,” she said, the situation is different when it comes to federal agencies “in a government-to-government capacity and in fulfillment of their treaty rights.”

Build a rain garden, a concave section of ground at your roofline. The depression collects water to create a natural, hassle-free planting area.

Xeriscape your lawn. Xeriscaping is a landscaping technique involving plants that require very little water.

Change your diet. Believe it or not, the food you eat is one-half of your water footprint. Not all foods require the same amount of water. Click here to learn more about it.

Home Updates That Reduce

Water Usage

In addition to the rainwater barrels listed above, here are products that prevent water waste at home.

Small Updates

Brita/water holder

Aerated faucet

Cold water laundry pods

Medium Updates

Tap sink nozzles

Soil moisture meter

Smart/intelligent faucets

Large Updates

Upgrade your windows

Low-flow toilets

Energy-efficient washing machines

High-efficiency toilets

Smart home water monitors

See What Your Current Water

Consumption Looks Like

You can gain more clarity on exactly how much water you use daily. You may find you use more water than you think. This Water Footprint Calculator helps you drill down on every home activity to help you estimate just how much water you use and where you can taper down.

Following this and the other strategies above will significantly reduce water usage to keep your bills down and provide more water for everyone. You will do a world of good.

Coalition Takes Biden to Task for Falling Short on Voting Rights

By Mark Hedin

order,” she said, is the General Services Administration’s vote. gov website.

Despite the GSA being specifically singled out in the executive order to modernize and improve the site, which many other agencies use in their voter registration efforts, “unfortunately, it’s just not all that user-friendly, or fully accessible to voters with disabilities and limited English proficiency.”

The Department of the Interior was one of just three agencies of the 10 covered in the report deemed “on the right track” for providing high-quality voter registration services at two universities it operates.

At the other end of the spectrum, Indian Health Services was rated “falling behind” for showing “no signs of follow-through” on its initial commitment to offer registration to its clients: “2.5 million of the most underserved Native Americans yearly,” De Leon said.

De Leon commended the Department of Veteran Affairs’ pilot programs in Kentucky, Michigan and Pennsylvania and its nonpartisan information about registration and elections on its website. Treasury, by boosting voter registration access at IRS tax preparation clinics and training staff in the process, also got an “on the right track” designation.

Meeting eligible voters where they’re at

“One of the single most impactful actions that the Biden administration can take under this executive order,” said Laura Williamson, of Demos, is for the Department of Health and Human Services to improve the voter registration element of its website healthcare.gov. Millions of people use the website annually, she said.”

For these people to be able to vote, she said, “is integral to the agency’s mission. HHS itself has found that voting is a social determinant of health.”

Although HHS initially vowed to integrate voter registration into its site, Williamson said, “that was well over a year ago and it hasn’t happened. It must.”

Along similar lines and “critical to the entire executive

The Justice Department’s Marshal Service, which oversees people in federal pretrial custody, and Bureau of Prisons have both made “modest initial efforts” to ensure that eligible people in their custody have access to registration and voting, Williamson said, “but both agencies have more work to do to meet the mandate. Voting is a right, not a privilege.”

Terry Ao Minnis, of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, echoed De Leon’s comments about Indian Health Services, one of three agencies deemed “falling behind.”

So is the Department of Education, which, besides not following through on modest commitments made in response to Biden’s order, should add voter registration information to its FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) process, the report suggests.

In the 2020-2021 cycle, FAFSA had 18 million student applicants, including 84% of all black students, 74% of Latino students and 68% of Asian American ones – “many of whom are young people not registered to vote,” Minnis noted.

And the report estimates that another 60,000 voter registrations could be added annually through the Department of Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Service, which is unique among federal agencies, Minnis pointed out, in its routine interactions with people who by nature of becoming new citizens are both eligible to vote and unregistered.

“To close out,” said Adam Lioz, of the Legal Defense Fund, “we need to restore and strengthen the Voting Rights Act, and we expect the administration’s strong voice in that fight. We appreciate the progress agencies have made and we implore the administration to finish the job on a clear and urgent timeline.”

A coalition of more than 100 civil rights and advocacy organizations is accusing the Biden administration of falling short on its “visionary” commitment to step up voter registration and that the failure to shore up voting rights is disproportionately hurting nonwhite voters.

In an early March letter to President Biden and 10 federal agencies, the coalition cited Census data showing wide discrepancies in voter registration between white voters and voters of color.

According to the data, 77% of eligible voters who are white are registered to vote. That compares to just 69% among African American eligible voters, and 64% for Asian Americans, 63% among Native Americans and 61% among Latinos. And in the last presidential election, 63 million people otherwise eligible to vote were not registered.

Executive Order 14019 weeks of taking anniversary of the 1965 historic “Bloody Sunday” march for voting rights through Selma, Alabama, Biden issued executive order 14019, “Promoting Access to Voting.”

The move was intended to expand voter registration opportunities in federal agency programs.

Two years later, at a March 2 press briefing, members of the coalition offered a new report, “Strengthening Democracy:

A Progress Report on Federal Agency Action to Promote Access to Voting,” assessing the work of 10 federal agencies in implementing Biden’s order.

Three are “on the right track,” the report found, but “most have either made minimal progress on their initial strong commitments or have left important opportunities on the table.”

Were they to “integrate a high-quality voter registration opportunity for the people they serve,” said Jesselyn McCurdy, of the Leadership Conference, those agencies “could collectively generate an additional 3.5 million voter registration applications per year.”

She continued, “While state after state imposes more barriers to the ballot, a divided Congress gives us little hope for restoring and strengthening the voting rights we so desperately need… Not since the Jim Crow era have we seen such opposition to freely casting and accurately counting our ballots.”

McCurdy added that “with legislation stalled for the foreseeable future, we are looking to the Biden-Harris administration to do everything within their executive power to protect the right to vote.”

Registering Native American voters Jacqueline De Leon of the Native American Rights Fund