How do you save water?

[Gorilla]

Well, when making rice ideally you cook it until just perfect and then stop it cooking by cooling it with cold water. This also washes off some of the starch, making the grains less sticky.

Then you need to re-heat it to serve! This could be done via microwave if you have one, otherwise it's boiling water again...

i've never even heard of cooking rice this way, but then i only really cook white rice - are you talking about brown rice?

I drain my pasta so that the water goes into the washing up bowl. Is that gross?

depends whether you mean you use the water to wash up with - doesn't it make everything all starchy?

[DavidT]

Yes, brown rice, though I can't really see what difference that would make. I always find that rice goes sticky if it's not cooled down once it's cooked. Maybe it's the starch left in the cooking water that does this, where the rice retains some even after draining.

All I know is that my method works and I like my rice fluffy with nice separate grains! I must have read about this method years ago and now it's 'ingrained'. Hah!

[Gorilla]

i rinse my rice slightly after cooking but don't reheat it, i think it's fine like that. i was only asking if you were talking about brown rice because i can never seem to cook it properly, and wondered if that was where i'm going wrong.

[Kate1978]

depends whether you mean you use the water to wash up with - doesn't it make everything all starchy?

Not really, it gets diluted with the rest of the water.

[Guate_Vegan]

I shower REALLY fast, like just wash my hair and my body..my mom has had talks with me that I'm not cleaning myself well LOL!! Isn't that funny..

But I'm really anal when it comes to saving water, maybe to the point of annoying people.

[Ms_Derious]

I shower REALLY fast, like just wash my hair and my body..my mom has had talks with me that I'm not cleaning myself well LOL!! Isn't that funny...

I fill a 2ltr bottle of tap water to get my hair wet before I put conditioner on. It takes a bit more that that to wash it out... but if I swirl my hair in a bowl of water first, this takes a lot of the gunk out as well.

I'm going to sound very unclean now, but while washing long hair takes a bit more water, I don't need to wash it anywhere near as often as people with shorted hair seem to. I think that's because I use a rush brush to brush through my hair with distributes the oils from the root to the length, thus meaning I don't get greasy roots. I think this evens the whole thing out.

[Kate1978]

I'm going to sound very unclean now, but while washing long hair takes a bit more water, I don't need to wash it anywhere near as often as people with shorted hair seem to. I think that's because I use a rush brush to brush through my hair with distributes the oils from the root to the length, thus meaning I don't get greasy roots. I think this evens the whole thing out.

I found the same thing when I had long hair.

[DavidT]

i rinse my rice slightly after cooking but don't reheat it, i think it's fine like that. i was only asking if you were talking about brown rice because i can never seem to cook it properly, and wondered if that was where i'm going wrong.

I use a pressure cooker for brown rice, which cuts down on the cooking time considerably.

[Roxy]

When I rinse out my Vita-Mix after making green smoothies, I tip the water into a big jug. Then I use it, diluted, to water the houseplants and the salad leaves in the garden. That's the ones that are under cover. The rest of the garden hasn't needed to be watered this 'summer'! It's rained most days... I also use the water I soak and rinse out alfalfa sprouts with to water plants.

Those are really good ideas!

[DavidT]

I also use the water I soak and rinse out alfalfa sprouts with to water plants.

Yes, we do that too. Seems like a very good idea.

[Mr Flibble]

My water is unmetered, so I feel it my duty as a consumer to get my money's worth as much as possible

I jest

I tend to use either original source (£1 a bottle) or co-op (79p a bottle, often 2 for 1) shampoo and conditioner mainly for long hair. Seems to do the trick. It's very thick and only needs washing every 2-3 days (i used to wash it daily but it was overkill). My hair really dislikes faith in nature stuff. I've used lush and neals yard shampoo/conditioners in the past, but other than smelling nice/having glass bottles they don't do anything for my hair that 79p doesn't. Haven't tried CO - in the past year I've started shampoo'ing twice.

[bradders]

somehow I manage to use just one cubic metre of water a month (metered) and that means that without the standing charges I pay just £1.50 a month for water and sewerage, less than £100 total. If it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down, I have a shower at least once a day but quick and with a low flow head, use a twin tub rather than a washing machine and finally wash-up using a basin rather than the whole sink. I use every useful last drop of water when cooking too.
Think that's pretty good going.

[DavidT]

That sounds pretty frugal to me, Bradders! That's not a lot of water at all - you can picture it. Fair play to you.

[bradders]

Cheers.
I just use as little as I can for each task and that saves so much water. Why waste such a clean and pure water for flushing the loo?
I also forgot to say I use washing up water and laundry water for filling the toilet cistern.

It works out that I spend less on water as a result here than I would be where I used to live in Ireland where water is apparently free but a lot of people have to pay into a community water scheme and ours costed over €200 a year and wasn't drinkable.
(now glad to be living in a city)

[DavidT]

Cheers.
Why waste such a clean and pure water for flushing the loo?

My thought precisely. The trouble we go to, to get lovely clean drinking water (denied to millions in this world) and then what do we do? Make it undrinkable!

[aspin231]

I actually had an argument with myself regarding wasted water a couple days ago.
See, I bought some heads of corn... but when I went to cook one I couldn't decide if I should microwave it or boil it.
I decided to boil, not being a fan of microwaves. But upon taking the pot to be filled, alas, I could not bring myself to waste so much water.
I microwaved my corn, and decided next time I would boil it, and use the water for vegetable stock!

I think I made a good choice

[DavidT]

I've now hooked up roughly 450 gallons of rainwater storage from various roofs. It's for use on the garden, swilling the back yard and for animals and birds drinking.

It's contained in a variety of barrels and, as the following picture shows, an attic water storage tank, balanced very well on two offcuts of electricity poles!



Edited: 600 gallons.

[kikifromscotland]

Where I live, lots of water comes out of the sky almost every day of the year (or that's what it seems like). Still I'm sure there is value in saving it. I'm trying to mostly buy second hand clothes, rather than new clothes which I assume would have required some water to produce, I take showers rather than baths (not sure about that three minute thing, I've left the plug in and showered for my usual time of 10 minutes and the water was only ankle high?) don't leave the water running when I brush my teeth (and yell at my brother, who does) and try not to overfill the kettle... that's about it really, I probably should do more...

[DavidT]

I do believe water is going to become an issue even for those who currently seem to have an abundance of it.

We have Pakistan with far too much with other parts of the world screaming for it (Russia, for instance, as well as the usual African countries).

Even here in Ireland, over the last couple of years, we have had either too much rain or not enough. This year is proving to be extremely dry.

[loveganism]

I do quite a lot of cooking so try to be creative by reusing utensils so I don't have to wash up as much at the end. If I'm following a recipe, I might even mod it just because of the washing up situation. This is more due to my hatred of washing up than water conservation, but still

[kikifromscotland]

Oh yeah i forgot i also do the washing up by hand instead of using a dishwasher I assume that saves a bit too?

[horselesspaul]

Oh yeah i forgot i also do the washing up by hand instead of using a dishwasher I assume that saves a bit too?

Surprisingly it depends on the setting you use on the dishwasher, what kind of boiler you have and how frequently you do the washing up. It can use less water and energy to use a dishwasher but usually does not.

[horselesspaul]

I figure since I'm a vegan I can just let the water run and run and run. It saves me time when I want to get a drink of water or something.

That's hilarious, matt35mm.

[DavidT]

Oh yeah i forgot i also do the washing up by hand instead of using a dishwasher I assume that saves a bit too?

Although the making and disposing of the dishwasher has its own drawbacks, if you already have one and if you have solar-heated hot water, then you can connect it to the dishwasher! A dishwasher doesn't use cold water at all, so feeding it with zero-fossil-fuel-energy hot water is, errmm,m pretty cool.

We wash dishes by hand, using solar-heated (or wood-heated in winter) hot water as much as possible; it's also used in the clothes washer.

[Sgable84]

I have a really nasty habit of taking a shower in the morning, then taking a bath at night before I go to bed Its a really horrible habit. I think I take a bath at night to relax my body before I sleep. But I have been reading how some people meditate/pray before bed and that helps. I read that a dairy cow goes through a bath tub size of water each day, so that also puts my baths into perspective.

[Sgable84]

I also wanted to add, in a house where I am the ONLY environmentally conscious one, I try and wash dishes by hand, or try and use the same dish (if i eat toast, then ill use the dish for lunch, and ill just wipe the crumbs off) Also, for my water bottle that I use daily, I only wash 2 times a month, because all i put in it is water, so it doesn't get that dirty.

[vplnt]

I try to shower not every day. It all depends on the climate: if i am in the cold north, i dont need to shower that often, but because i easily get cold, i love to take a bath 3 times/week. I'll then reuuse the bath water, by first storing it in buckets, or other big containers, and i'll use it for flushing the toilet: I really got to understand how much water gets wasted for flushing; its just insane to use cristal clear drinkable water for flushing. (i flush by using a bucket)
If i am in a hot country, it can get sweaty, so i then have a super quick shower, just to rinse of the salts on the skin.
About the talk on rice: have you ever been in Asia during the monsoon (rainseason)? I have. It's amazing, SO MUCH WATER... So growing rice in asia is a anciant traditionnal way, it's all part of the natural ecosystem, and the rythm of the monsoon.
About cooking the rice: the way many asian countries do it is by making sure you have the exact amount of water, so so you wont have to throw any. And letting the rice rest 20 mn, under a lid, at the end of the cooking time: it'll then get softer and absorb up all the water (and : it taste much better, and the all the nutrients are still there)

[Risker]

I try and wash dishes by hand

A full dishwasher uses considerably less energy and water than washing up by hand.

[DavidT]

A full dishwasher uses considerably less energy and water than washing up by hand.

That's quite a claim Risker; did you take into account the energy costs of making the dishwasher and the end-of-life costs? In our case, which should not be unusual, we have solar-heated water in summer and wood-heated water in winter, making doing dishes by hand the sensible, low-energy option. I see you correctly noted the dishwasher must be full to gain any advantage at all.

Also, those insisting on using dishwashers, which don't actually use cold water, should connect them to the hot supply, especially with regard to any hot water that might be there anyway, as above.

[Risker]

That's quite a claim Risker; did you take into account the energy costs of making the dishwasher and the end-of-life costs?

I didn't take account of anything, just what I've read in several places. I did consider those energy costs though but if you've already got a dishwasher it's a moot point.

[DavidT]

I didn't take account of anything, just what I've read in several places. I did consider those energy costs though but if you've already got a dishwasher it's a moot point.

True, true. I've also read that making a car consumes more energy than it consumes in use. I'd take such a claim with a pinch of salt but I wouldn't be surprised if it were true.

My point about connecting it to the hot supply is something that makes plumbers raise their eyebrows - they'd never thought of it before but (so far) those I've mentioned it to have said it makes sense. I would recommend everyone to get a simple solar hot water system if for that reason alone, ie, you already have a dishwasher but of course, every building should have one if possible.

Would you believe, I actually like doing the dishes by hand. It's a time for thinking about things. Plus I would be wary of some of the dishwasher cleaners.

[RainInStarlight]

I don't use a dishwasher because I don't have a dishwasher.
I'm really bad about flushing the toilet every time I go (whether yellow or brown)... I was just raised that you don't want to see your family member's waste (even if it is just pee.) It's a hard habit to break.
I don't was dishes until they all become dirty and I have to. I don't buy bottled water unless I'm out and feel "water thirsty."
I don't leave the faucet on when I'm brushing my teeth.
But I'm real bad about taking lonnnnggg showers/baths.

Oh well, more work to do! ^^

[Back-Space]

I haven't had a shower today, and I may not have one tomorrow Lol, no... I bought a Brita filter to save buying bottled water. I use very few dishes, and I clean them by hand I also brought a high pressure, low volume shower head from home. Uses like half the water when having a shower, but still gives you some good pressure We had one for the kitchen tap aswell, but I really don't need it.