We would, and we’d be concerned about the costs on our water bill too.
A Philadelphia-area company feels our pain. The company, nth Solutions, has invented the Leak Alertor to let you know when the water closet is out of control, so you can get in there and fix the flap or that other thinga-majig that makes the toilet behave.
When it comes to saving water, we all know that the commode is key battleground. In a typical household – unless people are obsessively washing clothes or taking large baths — more water is used to flush the toilets than for any other single use.
Experts estimate that toilet water consumes from 25 percent to 40 percent of all the water used in a house.
You’ve likely heard about potential solutions. You could enact a household rule, “When it’s yellow…” If you’ve got the constitution for it. You could stick bricks in the back of the tank, but conservation experts advise against that, saying the clay flotsam that will be released could cause a bigger problem by getting caught in that pesky flap mechanism. Then a running toilet would run away with all your water savings.
The Cobb County Water System in Marietta, Ga., and Kohler, maker of water faucets and other plumbing supplies, have won government recognition for their water-conserving ways.
The EPA named them among its “WaterSense” Partners of the Year. The program highlights the many ways in which organizations can advocate for saving water:
Cobb County water officials teamed up with Kohler, Lowe’s Home Improvement stores and others, to promote Georgia’s tax holiday for WaterSense products. WaterSense products include such things as water sensors for sprinkler systems to stop needless watering; low-flow shower heads and faucets, and toilets that use less water.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that it will become increasingly fashionable, practical and accepted to do away with your perfectly coiffed green velvet, water-sucking, chemically dependent lawn…and replace it with…a vegetable garden!
I’m not saying the neighbors will rush into your newly composted, tomato and potato plot with tambourines or anything, just that they might not file a homeowner’s association complaint.
There are just too many trendsetters in this arena for the concept of literally laying down roots to not take hold.
Remember the Eat the View campaign? A modest kitchen gardener in Maine and his like-minded buddies pushed through a petition with some 100,000 signers convincing the Obamas to convert some turf to veggie gardening at the White House. The presidential garden, although still surrounded by fields of grass, has been warmly watched by veggie gardeners and struck just the right note in this year of economic hardship.
California is experiencing its third year of drought, statewide, and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which provides two-thirds of California’s fresh drinking water and yields a giant portion of the nation’s food supply, is dangerously close to running dry, water conservationists and water managers say.
Yesterday, federal officials vowed to act. During a visit to Sacramento, Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes met with local interests – farmers, fisheries, families and municipalities in the region – and promised to free up more water for their use. He acknowledged that the drought has compounded a pre-existing condition – the overall degradation of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.
We’ve been looking at the parched parts of the yard and garden, and thinking about water, that precious commodity that’s been elusive in parts of the Southwest and over-abundant in the Northeast this year. You just can’t control rainfall. But you can capture it; direct it and supplement it with conservative watering strategies.
Here are some new (or newly revised) water-saving products for eco-minded veggie and flower gardeners.
The Weed -Free Garden Watering Blanket by Evo Organic. This product performs as promised by providing a “blanket” that prevents weeds from overtaking your vegetable garden. We tried it out this spring and found that is was, indeed, a delight to not have to yank weeds. More importantly, an embedded drip irrigation hose sewn into the blanket served as a built-in watering system that kept watering to a minimum and helped prevent water loss to evaporation. This was the ingenious part, major water savings. Now for the downside: Rainfall hit the plants but ran off the blanket or remained on the surface of the blanket. So nature’s watering system was not as effective. The plants got a drink when it rained, via wet leaves, but the ground could not get a good soaking. Did some of the rain get through the blanket? We think so, but not to the degree we would have liked. The organic fertilizer that came with blanket kit ($69.95 MSRP) seemed to work just fine. The blanket and hose seemed durable enough for a few seasons.
Feeling guilty about your bottled water? Or worried that it is not as pure as the pastoral scene on the label implies? Your worries are justified. Bottled water is unregulated in the US, and often as not, it is just filtered tap water – with a heavier carbon footprint thanks to the requisite plastic container and the shipping.
Luckily, just as you’re re-evaluating this resource-intensive habit, so is everyone else, from the cities that have passed bottled water taxes to the bottled water companies themselves to entrepreneurs trying to figure a better way.
Culligan, the big kahuna of bottled water service companies now makes a cooler that hooks up to your tap – an apparent concession that the days of carting around those big blue bottles may be numbered.
But one of the most unique solutions to filling your cup without filling the landfill may be generating your own purified water. You can do that by tapping into the humidity in the air with an Atmospheric Water Generator, which pulls water from “thin air” (as long as that air registers at least 35 percent humidity).
If anyone knows about energy-efficient, environmentally responsible buildings, it’s the U.S. Green Building Council. The booming non-profit wrote the book when it comes to guiding and recognizing those who create the world’s greenest buildings.
It should come as no surprise, then, that the council’s new headquarters in Washington, D.C., has received their own highest rating for environmentally smart buildings – platinum.
Before you assume they’re tooting their own horn, a look at all of the green elements of the council’s new 75,000-square-foot office may allay suspicions. (Besides, if they didn’t build the most energy-efficient and environmentally sound building possible, more than a few fingers would wag.)
The Sears Tower is undergoing a renovation of massive proportions. As the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, the Sears Tower is already relatively eco-friendly, meeting Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) criteria. But now it is aiming to be even greener.
You know your car is a gas hound. But what about the water it requires?
Keeping a car clean, whether you rinse it off in your driveway or get it scrubbed at a professional wash, uses buckets of agua, more than you might realize.
If you’re careful, washing your car at home might use 10 gallons of water, but probably more like 25 or 50. A car wash can use much more, in the range of 75 to 100 gallons.
America’s urban centers are becoming ever greener, with the National League of Cities holding its first ever Green Cities Conference last month. While many cities have recently taken up environmental causes, some have been carrying the banner for years.
Seattle, home to such earlier innovations as the 60s Space Needle, Microsoft, and grunge rock, is one such green leader.
In 2008, Seattle was anointed the nation’s leader in LEED-certified buildings by the US Green Building Council (USGBC), culminating an eight-year-old sustainable building policy calling for city-funded projects to be LEED-qualified at the silver level.
Seattle also can boast about its:
Impressive bike trails system with about 30 trails and 20 bike lanes, making bike commuting commonplace in Seattle, home to the Cascade Bicycle Club, which claims to be the nation’s largest bicycle club
Community-based home energy efficiency program, called SWITCH, that started last year and has sent neighbors door-to-door with thousands of CFL light bulbs.
Are you aching to put your wardrobe on the green track, but can’t see yourself wearing that pouffie bamboo eco-mini dress by the latest designer to visit the rain forest?
How about a cuddly, Earth-friendly T-shirt in “City Green” or “River Blue” instead?
Anvil Knitwear is making such eco-friendly T-shirts, in 15 styles and a range of colors — all composed of soft, U.S.-grown organic cotton. And while you won’t see them on a catwalk, they’re certain to turn up just about everywhere else you go.
Chances are you already even have an Anvil somewhere in your closet, probably bearing the name of your last sports club, bowling league, garden group or softball team. Anvil, based in New York with facilities in North and South Carolina, Honduras and Nicaragua, specializes in making cotton Ts that are nicely styled, but unadorned and ready to be customized with silk screening or embroidery. The vast majority end up stamped with someone’s group logo or motto
[/caption]
