Saving water

Today I'm feeling preachy, so I have chosen an important topic: water. Melbourne (and Australia) is experiencing severe drought problems. Click here to see the current water storage levels around Melbourne, currently at ~34%. This is equivalent to only half of storage level 10 years ago (70% in 1998). At this rate, it's scary to think that we might run out of water supply in another decade or so! Currently we are having water restriction in place to stop water wasting by prohibiting home car wash, watering of lawns etc, but we need action from everyone to conserve water in every possible way.

Water conservation is often overlooked by people, afterall, you see them fall from sky, flowing in river, rise and fall in the sea, how can we be running out of water? Well we can! I will not go into the details of cost of treating water and consequences of extracting ground water (I was also a little lazy to do enough research to comment). I just want to talk a little about simple ways to save/recycle/reuse water and get everyone to conserve one of the most basic yet most precious natural resources. (eeew @ my expression)

One of the biggest and easiest thing is to TURN OFF THE TAB. When shaving/brushing teeth or washing vegetables prior to cooking etc etc, do not keep the tab running, turn it off and only turn it back on when you are using them. Try not to let water go straight from tab to the drain, overall you are paying for them too.

Then there's reuse water, face it, things are not as dirty as 20 years ago, whether it's fruits and vegetables, clothes, your own body (not sure about the last one). This is what I try to do, when washing fruit and veggies, use large bowls rather than running tabs, normally the water looks as clean as before the wash, of course you DO NOT drink the used water, but they can be used to mop the floor, rinse cleaning rags, water plants or in the bathroom. I will explain a bit on the last one, I also keep a bucket in the shower, it can be used to collect that bit of cold water before hot water comes out of the shower head, and collect some water during the shower. Normally when I wash my hair, I will do it over the bucket (no special awkward position or yoga style body twitching, just place it between your feet and lower your head as usual), let the bucket collect the water running down and it will always collect some water during the showering. This water can be reused to fill the water tank of the toilet after flushing, if you think about how much drinking grade water is used to flush bodily waste, that idea will not be weird at all! Also there's using washing machine water to water garden and lawn (not your edible plants I'd imagine), again, I don't think I know enough to comment, but I'd think you need bio-degradable detergent etc.

Although I probably sounded like some weird hippies, I don't care, this is serious and I feel like I need to make others aware of it. If you don't like it, don't come to me when you stink from no shower with cracked lips from not drinking water!!!

Ok now the serious stuff is out of the way, I'm looking for new jewellery, mainly rings and pendants, coz my wrist is too thin to wear bracelets, random info......