water

Save Water This Holiday

scleaver — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 11:12:55 -0500

This holiday, for the eco-minded Mr. Fix Its, or for yourself if you’re looking to save water and money, check out the Niagara Conservation’s Water EcoKit to reduce water consumption (recommended by ReallyNatural.com).

Inside you’ll find, an Earth Massage Showerhead that provides good force at low pressure, and saves 40% more energy and water. A kitchen swivel aerator for your kitchen sink and two bathroom aerators. A toilet tank bank and toilet water saver help reduce the amount of water you’re using, up to ½ gallon per flush, that’s up to 2,700 gallons each year.

And, to help you seal up any leaks or other drips, the kit includes a flow meter bag to help you identify where water is being wasted in your house, leak detection tablets, and tape to seal water leaks.

Buy the Niagara Conservation Water EcoKit at Amazon's Home Improvement section.

Photo from Riverina Water Council.

In The Blue

scleaver — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:43:40 -0400

You want your barista’s latte spoon clean, sure, but recent news reports accuse Starbucks of wasting as many as six million gallons of water each day. All that water runs down the tap because of a company policy that requires stores to keep water running in the sink constantly, so germs don’t build up.

As Eat.Drink.Better. discussed, all that water would be enough to provide water for two million people in Namibia. In fact, “a single Starbucks tap left running for just over three minutes wastes the amount of water one African needs to survive for a day in drought conditions.”

And, as Eat.Drink.Better. points out, this isn’t just about wasting water, but about corporate responsibility—Starbucks owns Ethos Water that donates money to help water programs around the world and Starbucks itself touts environmentalism as a company policy.

If you want to avoid Starbucks next time you need a cup of coffee, try CoffeeShopFind.com or IndieCoffeeShops.com to find and add your own.

Photo from Big Marketing Blog.

Calculate Your 'Water Footprint'

jplatt — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:09:44 -0400

Do you or any of your family members spend too much time in the shower? Are your toilets designed to save water? How about your faucets, are they installed with conservation in mind? How about your lawn...

Okay, let's just get to the real questions: How much water do you use on a daily basis? And how much can you conserve?

A group called H2O Conserve wants to help you answer those questions. Their new online water calculator not takes you through your direct water usage, but the water used to produce your food and other goods, to come up with what they call your Water Footprint.

It's this later side that many people don't think about. Says H2O Conserve: "Your water footprint includes other factors such as water utilized to cool power plants that provide your electricity, and water saved when you recycle. You may not drink, feel or see this water, but it makes up the great majority of your water footprint."

The water calculator is great fun, and takes about 5 minutes or less. When you're done, the site will present not only your water footprint (mine came up at over 1,000 gallons per day!), but what you can do to reduce it. The site contains dozens of great tips, any one of which can save you tens of gallons every single day.

Give it a try. You might be shocked by what you come up with.

Change In A Bottle

scleaver — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 10:31:09 -0400

After restricting single-serving bottled water in 2007, Davis, CA is taking the next step in sustainability—losing bottled water entirely. In a new Reusable Water Bottle Initiative partnership with Nalgene, the city is trying to reduce their carbon footprint, waste, and emissions by encouraging reusable bottle use. Nalgene is donating water bottles to employees with the City, and proceeds from reusable bottle sales support the City’s sustainable programs. We’ve known for a while that bottled water produces a ton of waste. But, consider: the average consumer uses 167 water bottles, but only recycles 38 of them. That sends 38 billion bottles a year end up in landfills from U.S. consumers alone. Considering that 24 million gallons of oil is required to produce one billion bottles, it isn’t surprising that if we saved the energy we now use to create water bottles, we could power 190,000 homes. (Learn more at Nalgene's site.) In an era of high-tech filtration, there’s no need for bottled water. Learn more about filtration in general from AllAboutWater.org and figure out which filtration system works best for you at WaterFilterComparisons.com. Once you’re committed, take the pledge to go bottled-water free at Nalgene’s Filter For Good. Photo from: Nalgene.

Warning Against Bottled Water

tcorbs — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:01:24 -0400

We can argue till we're blue in the face about the lack of health standards for the production of what is allowed to be sold to consumers in this country and other countries around the world, but it starts with us as a society making it our buisness to know what it is we're buying into. How many people actually read the ingredients in the foods they buy? Unless we put the spotlight on companies by checking into what they're putting into the products they're selling, they will continue to get away with lower standards of quailty due to the lack of awareness on each and everyone one of our parts.

Get informed about what you put into your body. If Organic foods are becoming the current trend, it means we're getting on the right track, but what about the water we consume? We've become so environment conscious that the majority of households are drinking bottled water in an effort to make healthier choices. There are two problems with bottled water, firstly, one third of all bottled water contains contaminants! Unfortunalely the average consumer isn't aware that bottlers are required in most cases only to meet the same quality standards as tap water.

Taken from an article entitled "One Third of Bottled Water Contain Contaminants" on freedrinkingwater.com Written by Greg Lucas, Sacramento Bureau Chief: http://www.freedrinkingwater.com/water-bottled-unsafe-drinking.htm it states "The Food and Drug Administration needs to tightened its regulations on bottled water after a four-year study by the NRDC found that of 103 brands surveyed, one- third contained levels of contamination.

Of the hundreds of contaminants state and federal regulators measure, bottled water is subject to a higher standard for only two, according to Randy Kanouse, EBMUD's Sacramento lobbyist.

Bottlers don't have to create a "consumer confidence" report each year like water agencies do. The reports tell customers what's in their water. It details levels of contaminants, if any, like lead, aluminium, arsenic and salt."

When I read this I was angry that consumers are so misguided in their attempts to take action! Here we're meant to believe that by drinking bottled water we are minimizing the amount of contaminants we're consuming. (Of course more effort could be taken to the recycling these water bottles that are packing the landfills, but that's another topic of conversation I'll put on the shelf for another day!)

What a croc! I thought. It seems that with the popularity of bottled water, like anything else, companies are popping up everywhere to get in on the action and reap the profit of what seems to be the current trend.

Ok people, it's time to take a more simpler approach to this situation. While we wait for the government to take action by imposing standards that would improve this situation we still have to make a choice about the water we drink. I can share with you two ways you can begin to improve the current state of your drinking water:

1) Filter your tap water using a water filter fit you can buy at your local department store. (I chose to use a brita water filtration kit I bought at my local Walmart).

2) Purchase a whole house filtration system. There are plenty of places online you can get information about what they are and how they work. One of the best places I've found on the web is Excel Water Technologies http://www.excelwater.com/ because this site not only sells water filtration products but they discuss water and have a whole section dedicated to the effects of water contaminants. Articles of interest about water can be found here - http://www.excelwater.com/eng/b2c/about.php

3) Get informed about the company that produces the water you're drinking and get pickier about from whom you buy your water. Don't take for granted that just because the water is available for sale that just like any other product on the shelf, it's good for you. Like any other foods we've begun to pay attention to such as foods high in fats, high in preservatives, ect. make it your buisness as a consumer to inform yourself to make the best choices for you and your family.

Just remember, no matter what you choose; we set the demand, we set the standards! It begins with getting informed.

Save Water with a Smart Sprinkler

jplatt — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:00:00 -0400

Got lawn? If so, then you've probably started watering it already this season. But have you given much thought to your water bills, and how much water you are using?

One way to reduce your water consumption is with a new device called the Cyber-Rain XCI. This sprinker-control system hooks up to landscape watering systems, then wireless connects with the internet to check the day's weather. It adapts your lawn's daily watering schedule depending on the amount of heat, sun and rain you're expecting in your area.

Obviously, not having a lawn is more environmentally responsible than a big expanse of green that needs constant upkeep. But if you're going to have grass, you may as well do it wisely.

The Cyber-Rain XCI costs $349 for a unit that will control up to 8 watering zones. It comes with a USB wireless access point that you hook up to your computer. The device may not pay for itself in one season, but it will put you on the path toward a "greener" lawn.

In praise of tankless hot water heaters

ellen — Thu, 08 May 2008 09:26:40 -0400

Given that I'm spending most of my days nursing and attending to my 13-day-old daughter, I'm sure our readers will forgive my indulgence of passing along good info found on other blogs.

This post by Jason Pelletier of Low Impact Living captures the pros, cons and requirements of tankless hot water heaters. It's one of those things that would be a great idea in some situations and wouldn't work at all in others.

At the request of a colleague, I contacted a local plumber who did a great job on our radiant floors to see if they had done any of these tankless hot water heater installations. He said that they did but that they were so backed up with oil to gas conversions that they wouldn't be available to even start work for 2-3 months!

You heard it here first! If you want to upgrade your heating or domestic hot water systems in time for next winter, line up a plumber NOW.

Ellen

www.ehapc.com

[brooklyn green] www.ehapc.wordpress.com

What's In Your Water

scleaver — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Green Daily recently revealed what’s actually in our water. The answer: more than you want to know. Some surprises:

The U.S. develops more than 1,000 toxic chemicals each year. These are added to the more than 80,000 toxic chemicals that we use each day. Through the water cycle we learned about in elementary school (ground to river to cloud to rain to water to tap) these toxins end up in our water glasses.

So, maybe it’s a good thing that the Environmental Protection Agency only found 2,300 cancer causing chemicals in our water supply (there could have been more than 80,000).·

Bottled water offers no relief: the Natural Resources Defense Council found that one-third of bottled water was contaminated above industry standards.

Here’s a fun fact: the water that comes out of your tap has gone through more testing and is held to higher standards than bottled water.

But the most shocking fact: before we added these 80,000 chemicals to our world, “one out of 50 Americans would get cancer in their lives.” Now, it’s one in three, thanks to all those chemicals in our world.

Check out Water Filter Options and Tips for Improving Our Water.

Image of the World Water Cycle from the World Water Council.

Wash Your Carbon Footprint Away

RiverWired.com — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

It’s Good: This easy-to-install, sleek, stainless steel shower head from Alsons boasts impressive spray performance and patented spray technology- so you’ll get high water pressure with low environmental impact.

It’s Green: The Alsons design uses just 1.6 gallons of water per minute- compared to the 2.6 gpm that is the standard for most shower heads. The shower head utilizes a technology called “Fluidics,” which uses air to accelerate the flow of water and enlarge individual water droplets, allowing you to shower luxuriously while saving 36% on water and energy usage.

It’s Here: ChooseRenewables.com

It’s: $35.99

Support Clean Water, Look Fashionable

RiverWired.com — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

It's Good: Some people wear their hearts on their sleeves, but we think it's much cooler to wear a water faucet at your neck. Designer Linda Loudermilk has created this chic water faucet necklace (complete with a glass droplet of water hanging tantalizing from the spigot) to get the conversation focused on the really vital matters in life. (No we do not mean your cleavage.)

It's Green: Every necklace sold will result in a donation to the YEW Foundation to support clean water initiatives across the globe.

It's Here: www.UncommonGoods.com

It's: $65