EPA Offers Holiday Water Efficiency Tips
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, preparing for and cleaning up after a holiday meals and parties can use much more water than ordinary, everyday use.
Running your tap continuously while preparing food or washing dishes wastes water and can use more than two gallons of water every minute your tap is running.
EPA is encouraging the public to find ways to reduce your water and energy use. For example:
- Scrape dirty dishes clean, instead of using water to rinse them before you put them in the dishwasher.
- If you don't use a dishwasher, fill the sink with a few gallons of soapy wash water, clean your dishes, and put them aside. Then rinse them all together afterward.
Either of these simple practices could save 10 gallons of water. If every American household reduced their water use by 10 gallons on just Thanksgiving Day, it would save more than 1 billion gallons of water, as well as save any energy or materials used to pump or treat tap water.
For more WaterSense tips, visit www.epa.gov/watersense/water_efficiency/cons.html.