the green gal

Save water and money

A quick money-saving tip for you, it'll cost you nothing and save you water too. Hop over to Save Water Save Money and get yourself a free ShowerSave. Your water company will send you a little stainless steel tube which you attach to the shower hose where it joins your bath taps (v easy, honest, I could do it). And that's all you have to do.

The gadget evens out the amount of water that flows from your shower so you don't waste money heating water you don't need. Our shower used to either dribble or blast us and batter the shower curtain so the constant even flow has made our showers much more enjoyable!

Now, I do write for Save Water Save Money on occasion but I'm not being paid to write about the ShowerSave here. I didn't even get mine from SWSM, it was given to me by a friend who has a power shower so can't use it. Yep, if you were looking for a catch, this is it, the ShowerSave doesn't work on electric showers.

But, if you have a non-electric shower and you want to save money a ShowerSave will help do the job for you.

And if you frugal-minded folks want more of me, you can tootle over to Almost Frugal where I am the subject of This is What Frugal Looks Like.

World Toilet Day 19 November

Did you know there was such a thing as World Toilet Day? No, it's not about giving toilets the day off or higher pay but appreciation does come into play a little. Here are some staggering toilet-related stats:

• 2.5 billion people in the world don't have access to sanitation such as a toilet and clean water to wash their hands
  
• 1.8 million children a year, so 5,000 a day, die because of diseases caused by poor sanitation and dirty water
• Every year around 60 million children (that's nearly the UK population) are born into homes with no toilet
• The average European uses 200 litres of water every day (that takes into account water used in the production of food and products consumed and used), while the average person in the developing world uses just 10 litres a day
• 97.% of the world's water is saltwater. That means that if the world's water fitted into a bucket, only one teaspoonful would be fit to drink.

(Figures taken from www.wateraid.org)

Makes your bathroom look quite luxurious now, doesn't it?! 

So, having read the depressing statistics, what can you do about it? Well, by watching how much water you use in everyday life you'll be conserving resources as well as saving yourself money (especially if you're on a meter) in energy costs. A few ideas are:

• Fit a hippo (the water-saving device rather than the big beast) in your toilet cistern to reduce the amount of water used for each flush
  
• Turn off the tap when you're brushing your teeth
  
• Shower rather than lie in a bath and try to get your time down to four minutes (it's doable, honest!). There are some fun timers you can get to liven up(!) and time your speedy washing, try savewatersavemoney.co.uk for a selection.
  
• If you're feeling flush (sorry) you could help WaterAid continue their quite remarkable work getting clean water and sanitation to those without by donating at www.wateraid.org

And if you're really serious about saving water you could employ the "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down" way of thinking!