Why Conserve Water?
Water conservation is the most cost-effective and environmentally sound way to reduce our emand for water. Using less water also puts less pressure on our sewage treatment facilities and uses less energy for water heating.
The Water and Energy Connection
Saving water also saves energy. Much of the energy used in Connecticut is for pumping water throughout the state. Regarding your personal energy bill, using less hot water saves on water heating. On the flip side, saving energy and using alternative energy saves water. Electricity production from fossil fuels and nuclear energy is responsible for 39 percent of all freshwater withdrawals in the nation.
What can YOU do to help?
There are many effective ways to conserve water in and around your home. Look through this list for ways that will work for you. Indoor savings are based on a family of two adults and one child.
Water is an essential ingredient in most manufacturing operations. For those 1 billion of us in the high-consumption class, cutting down on our purchases of material things--from clothes and shoes to paper and appliances--conserves and protects water supplies as effectively as installing a low-flush toilet. As with so many natural resources, as long as prices in the marketplace fail to reflect full social and ecological costs, voluntary changes in consumption patterns will play an important role in the quest for sustainability.
For example, we rarely think about water when we see an automobile, but producing a typical U.S. car requires more than 50 times its weight in water (39,090 gallons)! Choosing a fuel-efficient model will help--it takes 44 gallons of water to refine one gallon of crude oil and 1,700 gallons of water to produce a gallon of ethanol.
A kilogram (2.2 lbs) of hamburger or steak produced by a typical California beef cattle operation, for instance, uses some 20,500 liters (5,400 gal.) of water.