9 Tricks for Conserving Water in Your Kitchen

We all know the importance of conserving water, and we all know some of the basic strategies to do that. You already make sure your home’s faucets don’t drip, your showers don’t take longer than necessary, and so on. But the fact of the matter is that these basic things only make a small dent in your water usage.

One of the biggest culprits of excessive water usage is the kitchen. In your kitchen you use water to wash the dishes, to cook food, to drink and make drinks, and so much more. In this blog, we talk about nine easy tricks to help you conserve water in the kitchen.

1.Wash Vegetables and Fruits in a Bowl

Instead of letting the water run as you scrub your produce, fill a bowl or your sink with water and clean them that way. This method saves energy as well as water.

2.Don’t Use Water to Defrost

When you need to defrost food, don’t let the water run. Instead, use a bowl of water or set your frozen food out on the porch to defrost. To save more time and water, plan ahead and put your frozen goods in the fridge the night before.

3. Boil as Little Water as Possible for Cooking

The instructions on your box of pasta overshoot the amount of water you should use. When you cook food or make your tea or coffee, boil just as much water as you need. You can also steam foods like carrots, potatoes, or greens. Using less water actually helps keep the food more nutritious.

4. Use Leftover Water to Water Plants

When you do have excess water left over from cooking, set it aside and let it cool down. Then, use it to water any plants around the house or the garden.

5. Only Use Dishwasher when Full

Dishwashers incorporate designs that enable them to use less water than hand washing dishes. However, this water saver only works if you use the dishwasher when it’s actually full. You can conserve even more as you set your dishwasher to the shortest and most sustainable settings.

6. Half Fill the Sink when Hand Washing

If you don’t have a dishwasher, you can still conserve water while you wash dishes. Fill your sink up halfway and wash the dishes in the standing water, then rinse them all together. Similar to not running the tap while you wash your produce, this also saves the energy needed to continuously heat water.

7. Use the Disposal Less and the Garbage More

Excessive reliance on the garbage disposal not only uses water, but traps odors in your kitchen as well. Get a strainer for your drain and pull out the food scraps at the end of your dishwashing. Throw the scraps in the garbage to avoid risking a smelly and clogged disposal.

8. Keep a Pitcher of Drinking Water in the Fridge

You probably prefer to drink cold water. Tap water requires a little bit of running to turn cold, and when you run water while waiting for the temperature to change, you can waste a lot of it. Instead, fill a pitcher with water and put it in the fridge. Then, you have nice, cold water whenever you want it.

9. Buy a Filter for Your System

Instead of putting a filter on each faucet in your house, buy one that goes directly into your water system. This not only saves you time and money, but it also conserves water by filtering that water closer to the source instead of at each faucet in your house.

With these nine tips you can make a bigger dent in your water usage every day while you conserve more water. There’s no time to waste: go fill up a pitcher and put it in your fridge now. Start researching a filtration system for your home. Start making a difference today.