Say Go Green and most people will turn a deaf ear, say conservation and the rest will turn a blind eye. God forbid, say Environment Friendly and Water Footprint and a door will slam on your face. By this we don’t mean to banish these words forever, rather we’re implying that its time we took a good hard look at the ‘should be’s’ and the ‘can be’s’ a little more carefully.

So how then should a responsible citizen of the world ensure that he’s doing his bit without making any huge changes that become cumbersome to sustain over time? We’ve rounded up a few effortless solutions that won’t weigh you down with the nitty gritties but will ensure that they take the burden of Environment Friendliness off your shoulders.

Take a look at our easy pointers down below specific to water management at home–

Cooking with care

It’s commonly thought that kitchens use a whole lot of water and that too for wasteful run-off’s on account of washing vegetables and fruits under running water. What’s more, even the fact that certain recipes require a good dose of cold water dunking and hot water boils and thereafter the dumping of the entire portion of water used, adds up to the unnecessary waste of good water.

Green Fact- There are many ways of saving up the elixir while in the kitchen, environmentalists suggest keeping a colander close at hand while cooking and ensuring that any draining and washing can be done so by keeping the colander underneath. Retain the water that is left behind after pasta has cooked. Preserve the water thus collected and reuse as a sprinkler for the potted plants or put it in your pets bowl as a tasty drink.

Add to recipes a little salt, a little love and lots of forethought

Rice/ paddy cultivation needs a lot of water (and time) for production before it reaches our table. Now imagine tossing out a perfectly good bowl of that rice into the waste bin because it was leftover or stale. Instead plan out recipes that are more or less in consideration of the number of people who will partake in it.
If there are four or seven course meals planned, estimate the food quantity with forethought. Even just a rough plan about the water consumption that will be required will discourage you from opting for heavy-duty recipes needing lots of washing and boiling processes.

Green Fact- Avoid thawing frozen foods under running water, rather microwave them or fill a vessel with hot water and put the food in it. The water in the vessel thus left can be used for watering plants or if it’s clean enough, a bathroom flush.
– A simple cup of coffee consumes over 40 litres as coffee plantations need that much water to grow. A litre of milk, that’s even more astounding- 1,000 litres of water go into bringing a litre of milk to a consumer. So think twice before dunking anything down the drain.

The new spin on the old mantra is eat local, think global!

Washing up and not causing a stink!

There have been some impractical solutions to the colossal waste of water during bath time and then there have been some practical ones too. While conserving water while bathing is thought of as something that’s unarguably necessary with no tangible solutions for conservation, many have found seemingly good ideas that go a long way in saving up the H2O. For example, not letting water run wastefully while waiting for it to heat up, and preserving it in a bucket will save many valuable litres that would have otherwise run-off.

A bucket bath is thought of as more judicious as compared to a shower. Though there are those who ensure to install low-flow showerheads. They consume less and give an equally good wash up.