Paper and Water
Continuing the theme from last week, I counted the number of paper towels I use in a usual day - about 15. Ouch.
Since I've been on my new quest to use regular cloth towels, I've cut that number down to about 4-5. The best part of it is that we've only used two tossable paper bowls - and that's because my husband put leftovers in them when I wasn't looking.
My focus this week will be on saving water and finding alternatives to the cleaning products we've been using.
On the water issue, we've already become accustomed to saving water. When we built our cabin, we put in a 2,000 gallon tank, which at the time, was much more economical than digging a well.
However, that's been hard on the environment for several reasons. First, we had to have that water trucked in, using gas and putting more carbon into the air. Second, we couldn't drink the water, which forced us to buy gallons of plastic jugs, which we finally could recycle when our local trash service instituted a limited program (more on that on another day).
At $125 a truckload, we learned many ways to conserve water (even then, it still only lasted a month).
The tank option was a temporary one and wasn't so bad when we didn't live here full-time. Last month, they finally came out and dug our well and for the past two weeks, we've been running the water they found full-time to clear it up. On the day we received our $8,000 bill for finding water on our property we could use, the water finally cleared.
Now they tell us we have an ample supply that probably won't run dry in during our lifespans.
Still, I know there really isn't an unlimited supply of fresh water on the planet, so the conservation methods we began will continue.

Today's Tips to Conserve Water:

• When washing hands, turn on and wet them and then turn off the water until you're ready to rinse. Same goes for brushing teeth or washing your face.
• Do you really need to take a bath everyday? When we had our first exchange daughter 18 years ago, someone said to me, "Oh, I heard Europeans don't bathe everyday." Well, like many other ideas, I think they have something here. Since my choices became bathing everyday or spending another $125 for more water, I found that every other day works most of the time - unless of course, its 100 degrees outside or I've gotten dirty doing something else. On a normal day, sitting at my computer writing all day, cooking dinner and even walking the dogs usually doesn't get me dirty enough to have to take a full scale bath. On the "odd" days, I do wash off with a washcloth to freshen up.
• I heard a Native American touting water conservation by advising, "If its yellow, let it mellow; if it's brown, flush it down." Flushing the toilet (even if its a newer model like ours), takes about 5-7 gallons of water per flush.
• Washing clothes. I ensure that we have a full load before doing any. Same with dishes - and rather than running water the whole time I'm rinsing, I use a plastic tub, fill it about a quarter full and rinse them in that - or less. If the dishes I'm washing are clean, there's no reason I can't use the same water to rinse them.

You can find more tips at http://www.wateruseitwisely.com/ and take the family water audit to find your own conservation score: http://www.wateruseitwisely.com/familywater/index.shtml