Water-saving habits are those easy-to-learn daily behaviours that can save us thousands of litres (and dollars) over our lives. So get with the program and save those drops that make the wave.

Thousands of litres of pure fresh water is wasted every day by lax habits developed with little regard to the limits of nature. Hence, while the water we use in the home may seem trivial (only 7% of all water used in Australia) its conservation is a step toward increasing our knowledge and respect for this precious, life-giving resource - a resource all the living systems around us also rely on, and that we waste at their cost.

Do it now!

Adjust your daily habits to save litres of clean fresh water (and dollars) every day

• Washing your teeth - Use a glass of water instead of a running tap for wetting the brush and rinsing. A running tap can waste about 16 litres of water each minute.
• Washing your body - Take a shower instead of a bath and limit your showers to the time it takes to wash and rinse all of you.
• Shaving - Use a cup, sink or container of warm water to clean the shaver in rather than a warm running tap.
• Clearing dishes after the meal - Scrape and compost your food waste instead of rinsing it off plates and dishes.
• Washing dishes - Rinse dishes in a bucket and use the water on the garden afterwards.
• Packing the dishwasher - Don't rinse dishes before putting them in the dishwasher (that's what the machine iss for).
• Washing clothes - Ensure you only do full loads of washing, if possible using cold water and adjusting water levels to suit the size of loads.
• Waiting for the warm water to arrive - Try and capture the water that flows out of the shower or tap prior to it being the right temperature and put it on the garden.
• Fix dripping taps and toilets quickly - They can waste up to 13 litres of water a day.

To learn a new habit requires a couple of simple steps:

1. Decide as a household the habits you're going to establish and ensure everyone is on board.
2. Set up reminders: try notes on the fridge and on the light switches. Empower the kids to dob you in (they'll love it).
3. Do the habit consciously for a week, then two, then it should be established and your unconscious will keep it going.
4. At the end of each water billing period note the savings and reward yourselves.

Why this action is

important

Fresh water is the life blood of nature. The subordination of water for human purposes comes at the health of those natural systems that support humans in other ways (the ones that clean our air, moderate our environment and provide us with food). So we need to nourish and learn to share and value this precious fluid. The consequences of doing otherwise can be seen in the spreading deserts across the world and the drought and famine that follow them.