(Un)common Sense: Water

These small green efforts all add up.

Turn off your faucets.

Running your faucet while brushing your teeth can waste 200 gallons monthly. So, don’t run it while washing fruits and vegetables—or dishes, either. Fill up a pan and wash them there instead. Bonus: Skip baths for showers and get clean with HALF AS MUCH!

Collect water in a bucket while your shower warms up.

Even with a low-flow shower head, a one minute wait wastes about 1.5 gallons. Multiply this by a four-person home, and your family could be putting 180 gallons of clean water down the drain every month.

Let your dishwasher save you water.

Run your dishwasher with a full load at the end of the day. Depending on how good you are at it, hand washing dishes in the sink can use from 8 to 27 gallons of water. Newer, Energy Star dishwashers use six gallons or less.

Eat less red meat.

It’s been calculated that to producing six ounces of beef requires 674 gallons of water. The same amount of ham requires 270 gallons, and two eggs just 104. Fruits and vegetables, even less—a pound of tomatoes only 26, a pound of potatoes just 34.

Wash full loads of dishes and clothes.

When you wash either dishes or clothes in a machine, fill it. Think about it this way, when you only load them halfway, you make your machines 50% less efficient. Do the world a favor, fill them up.

Learn more on ways to save water and money with LADWP.
Learn more about the assumptions behind Magenta House water and power savings calculations.