World Water Day is an important annual event aimed at raising awareness of the importance of preserving and conserving our water resources. But celebrating World Water Day isn't just about raising awareness; it's also about taking action to create lasting change. Here are some ideas for how you can use this day to focus on sustainable water use practices.
Be aware of your own practices and their impact
Consider researching ways that you can reduce your own water consumption at home, such as taking shorter showers, not watering your lawn during droughts, and fixing leaky faucets. Ultimately, the more you know about water conservation, the easier it will be for you to make sustainable changes in your life and those around you.
Shampoo bars: providing a water saving switch without compromise
Switch to water-free, soap-free shampoo bars- Each shampoo bar lasts approximately the number of washes as 3x 350ml standard plastic shampoo bottles and on top of that, a typical liquid shampoo is formulated with around 70% water too, some of which accidentally gets washed down the plug hole as you try to judge the correct amount to dispense.
The plastic packaging used to contain 350ml of liquid shampoo uses around 700ml of water just to make, this is also known as hidden water so, when you switch to a solid shampoo bar, not only do you save 2100ml of water that would be used to produce the plastic bottle equivalents, but you also won’t waste half of your water-based shampoo leaving you with healthy growing hair without compromise. Plastic production has one of the biggest water footprints in the world, so by reducing plastic use, you will have a massive impact on water conservation.
Here are a few other practices that can really make a difference in conserving water
Turn off the taps when brushing your teeth or washing your hands/face. A running tap uses 6 litres of water per minute so if you’re brushing your teeth for a minimum of two minutes then that’s 12 litres of water saved each time you brush
Use a water butt to collect water for feeding your plants
No need to pre-rinse dishes for the dishwasher
Choose water efficient appliances and reuse the water from the dryer into your gardens
Reduce your time in the shower: In the UK, a normal shower uses around 90 litres of water for a 10 minute shower, so if you can reduce this to 5 minutes we’re saving 45 litres of water in each shower!
We've worked out that by making the simple switch to shampoo bars and reducing your showering time from 10 to 5 minutes, each person can conserve over 8000 litres of water in just 1 year.