11 Ways You Can Save Water

The U.S. consumes three times as much water as the global average, as droughts increase and water tables drop. Drinking water consumes large amounts of energy to produce. Since water is absolutely necessary for life, we'd be wise to respect the limits of this extremely important resource.

Julie Smith, 5/14/26

This is a summary of Chapter 13, Water is Life, in the book, “2050: What’s it Gonna Be?”.  You can download the full chapter, as well as other chapters.  References are here.

No discussion of planetary environmental destruction and actions we must take to save it is complete without water.  Why?  Because water is Life.  Because water is energy.  Because energy is water.  It’s all linked and it’s all important.  All life on the planet depends on water to survive.  No water, no life.  All life on the planet is made up mostly of water.  Even our own bodies are about 60% water.  And, when I say that we all need water, I mean that we need fresh water that’s safe for drinking, at the very least.  Exceptions are marine life and certain microbes that can live in saltwater.  And, like everything else we humans do, every decision we make about our direct water consumption impacts our CO₂ footprint that’s warming our planet.  And, everything we consume, from food to energy to clothes to stuff, requires water which requires energy which increases our CO₂.  Think about that.

Yet, even though the habitable surface of the planet is mostly water, we’re managing to run ourselves out of that, too.  You might be wondering how that can be.  Well, contrary to what a moronic teacher told my sons in their elementary school science class just a little more than 30 years ago, we ABSOLUTELY DO NOT have an endless supply of fresh water.  It’s no wonder that most people are clueless about the importance of water and why conservation is so very important.  If you are a teacher, please be responsible concerning education about water.  For some awesome material about the realities of our water, you can visit water.org.

The trouble with water is that the fresh water that’s actually useable and available for most life only makes up 0.4% of the total water on the planet.  The rest is sea water, or is tied up in ice caps and such.  Estimates of global access to clean fresh water for humans is all over the map, and estimates of global population without access to clean water can range anywhere from 11% to 50%, depending on the source of the estimates.  And, in one way or another, they’re all mostly right.  It depends on how access and availability are defined, as well as what acceptable water quality is, along with a myriad of other criteria that can be used to define water.  Also, consistency in how the data is collected by various researchers for different studies is always a challenge.  Largely it’s an issue of data availability, which is scarce in some regions of the world, especially in countries where safe water is scarce. 

In the U.S., we consume a total of 322 billion gallons of water per day, or 960 gallons per day per capita.²¹  We consume three times as much as the global average, which isn’t a huge surprise since we also spew four times more CO₂ than the global average.  The U.S. population is 4.2% of the global population, yet we manage to use 11% of the water.  Again, while this is embarrassing, at least to me, it also means we have lots of room to move, or to reduce our water consumption.

Here are 11 ways you can save water:

1. Never waste food. Agriculture is 37% of water in the U.S., so wasting food is wasting water.

2. Avoid beef and dairy. Cattle use by far more water to produce per pound of food than any other agricultural product. This is largely due to the large agricultural demands of growing the feed. The entire Salt Lake in Utah is drying up because of too much upstream water allocation for growing feed for cattle.

3. No lawns in western dry climates. Lawns double water consumption in summer, because western lawns require so much water. Yards can and should be planted with native plants that require no additional water, are hospitable to pollinators, birds and other wildlife, and are absolutely gorgeous.

4. Never waste water. This is important not only for the water itself, but for energy, because water treatment emits 2% of U.S. carbon emissions. Even more, the electricity generation consumes enormous amounts of water for evaporation.

5. Minimize electricity use. Same reason as (4) above - evaporation for thermoelectric power generation in the U.S. is 41% of all water consumption.

6. If it's yellow let it mellow.  The toilet is the biggest consumer of indoor water at 24%, yet there’s absolutely no hygienic requirement for toilet flushing unless it’s brown.  This is one of the savings measures that Cape Town, South Africa implemented when they were running out of water. Low flush toilets should be a no brainer.

   
   
   
   
   
   

7. Take fewer and shorter showers. Shower water is 22% of our indoor water, as big corp has convinced us of the need for extreme sanitation to drive up sales of toxic personal care products. The truth is that too much showering isn't good for our skin or hair, because it disrupts the natural microbiome that protects them. Excessive showers also waste energy to heat the water. We only take a couple showers a week in our house.

8. Reduce laundry water. At 18% of indoor water, it's simple to reduce laundry water. For one thing, we've been brainwashed into thinking we need to wash our clothes a lot more often than necessary. It's simple. If it's not dirty, don't wash it. I have clothes that haven't been laundered for a year or more. Excessive washing wears out the clothes faster. We maybe do one load of laundry a week. Always wash cold; hot water is completely unnecessary and a waste of energy.

9. Turn down the faucet. Faucets use 16% of indoor water, which is absolutely absurd. At home, we use maybe a gallon a day at faucets. Mainly, we don't turn the water on full-blast, because if you do that, only about 10% of the water touches your hands, and then rest flies down the drain, unused. What a waste! You can always install low-flow faucet heads, but then if you actually need the water to be on full blast, say to fill a large cooking pot, then you have to wait forever. It's so much easier just to turn it down, so a small stream flows out. We never waste water running it full-blast to get hot water, another idiotic waste. When the water is turned down, the warmth of our hands is more than enough to be comfortable washing with cold water.

10. Don't leave faucet water running when you're not using it. Hello? I'm constantly amazed when people leave the faucet running while brushing their teeth. For crike sake.

11. Fix those leaks. Leaks are 10% of indoor water usage, wasting thousands of gallons in a single household in a year. What a waste!  Toilet leaks are the most common, as flapper valves wear out.  A 1990 survey found that 20% of toilets were leaking.  Is yours? Sink leaks are easy to fix. Don't be lazy.