Post in collaboration with Yorkshire Water
I can't believe it's been a month already since I started the water saving challenge with Yorkshire Water! If you missed the previous posts, Yorkshire Water challenged me to try and save water around the home just by changing my daily habits ever so slightly which I've actually found fairly easy which surprised me!
Making Hot Drinks - I used to fill the kettle with way more water than I actually needed which actually meant that I ended up tipping away some of the water because, I don't know about you, I won't use water that's been stood in a kettle overnight because I'm convinced it's stale or full of limescale. So now I use the mug I'm going to drink out of to actually put the water into the kettle so I'm only putting in exactly what I need. Not only does this save me water, it also saves on electricity because naturally, a kettle with a lot less water in takes less time to boil.
Doing the Laundry - Being on my own I don't use my washing machine every day but what I was guilty of was washing twice a week, only filling it half full of clothes before I turned it on. This was obviously a totally unnecessary waste of water and I've found it surprisingly easy to wait until I've got a full load to actually turn the washer on. I have plenty of clothes so it's not as if I've been without clean clothes to wear and I can imagine that cutting down to one wash per week on average that I've cut down my average daily water usage by quite a bit!
Watering the Garden - Just before I started this challenge I bought a sprinkler because my garden was looking so yellow, sad and dead because it had been so relentlessly hot in the UK. However, Yorkshire Water recommend that you don't use a sprinkler or a hose pipe to water your garden because it's hard to control the water you're using. I actually haven't watered my garden at all during the past month and because we finally got some cooler weather with some rain showers it's not actually doing too bad now. If you do want to water your garden, the best thing to do is use a watering can so you know how much water you're using. Alternatively you could invest in a water butt which recycles rain water which can be used for watering the plants/grass. Another little tip is to Leave your grass a little bit longer which helps it to stay greener as the sun doesn't scorch it whereas shorter grass tends to go yellow quicker as it burns.
Washing up while the water is hot - This was the most challenging part of the whole month. I used to fill the washing up bowl with hot water and leave the pots to 'soak' for what I thought was 5/10 minutes when it actually turned into more like 40 minutes by the time I'd plonked myself on the sofa and forgotten about them. Obviously this meant that the water was cold by the time I got to it and no use for washing the dishes in. So over the past month I've stopped the laziness and I've been doing the washing as soon as I've put the water in the bowl - not once have I tipped it down the sink and refilled it. I'm quite proud of myself actually *insert smug emoji*
So there's 5 tried and tested tips on how to save water in your home. It's not a case of making massive changes, it's just a few little tweaks to bring your daily water consumption down. Although we have had a little bit of cooler weather in the past month we still haven't had enough rain so just by reducing your water usage a little bit, collectively we can make a big difference to the impact on water sources around Yorkshire. Not only would you be helping the environment, if you're on a water meter you could also be saving yourselves some money which, with Christmas in the not so distant future, should come in handy!
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