10 Ways to Teach Your Family to Save Water

Take a moment to ponder the picture above. It really speaks to me, and to the fact that we take water for granted in our daily lives. Free flowing out of every faucet, shower head, hose and water fountain... always there at the turn of a nozzle. Yet there are people all over the world who don't have access to clean water to bathe in, or to drink.

I've written before about the mission of the Blue Planet Run Foundation. The issue of a water crises in our world bears repeating, and when Blue Planet Run contacted me again to help spread their message, writing about it here was the least I could do.

Here are 10 Ways to Teach Your Family to Save Water: (this list was provided to me by Blue Planet Run)

1) Take a shower instead of a bath and save 21 gallons of water.

2) Turn off the water when you brush your teeth and save 1.5 gallons each time.

3) If you wash dishes by hand, rinse them in a large bowl or sink instead of running the tap, and you'll save a whopping 15-25 gallons!

4) If you use a dishwasher, use the short cycle and save 8 gallons.

5) Running the dishwasher or clothes washing machine only when full will minimize both water and energy usage.

6) Buy a front-loading washing machine instead of a top-loading one and you'll use 24 gallons instead of 40 per load.

7) Challenge your family to take 5 minute showers and install an ultra-low-flow shower head.

8) Want to save another 20-30 gallons of water? Use the shower just to get wet and lather up, then again to rinse and you'll use just 5 gallons.

9) When shaving, use a bowl or the sink instead of running the tap and save 19 gallons of water.

10) Install a low-flow toilet and reduce the number of flushes. An alternative is to put a 1-gallon plastic jug of water in the toilet tank, which will reduce the amount of water used for flushing by 12 gallons per day.

Want to learn more? Visit blueplanetrun.org, register for their newsletter and get a free download of their book "Blue Planet Run: The Race to Provide Safe Drinking Water to the World."