This week’s simple swap can save you £128 per person per year and 22,100 gallons of water per year.

These astronomical saving can be achieved through two simple actions; turning off the tap when brushing your teeth and washing your face and fixing any leaks in your home. This means you can also conserve up to 22,100 gallons of water per person per year, and for comparison the average person in the UK uses 52,925 gallons of water.

So, over the course of the average life span of 80 years you could therefore save up to £10,240 per person and 1,768,000 gallons of water per person.

One way to reduce your water consumption is turning off the tap when brushing your teeth. On average that is for two minutes. During those two minutes, valuable water is going to waste. Turn that tap off when you do not need the water and turn it on to clean your tooth brush afterwards. It saves 4 gallons a minute. That is 200 gallons a week for a family of four and 10,400 gallons of water a year.

Another way to reduce your water consumption is by having a “navy shower” , this idea originated on naval ships, where there is a constant scarcity of fresh water. This means doing all your soap and shampoo lathering with the shower switched off, then turning it back on again to rinse. These “navy showers” only uses around 3 gallons or 11 litres of water compared to the average shower that uses between 112 gallons and 128 gallons of water. That is a massive disparity in water usage and cost as by switching to navy shower you can “save £80 a year per person” according to The Manchester Evening News.

Furthermore, if you are letting the water heat up in your shower, perhaps consider collecting the cold water and using it for plants, or for other uses around the house.

Additionally, another way to reduce you water consumption is by fixing easily corrected household water leaks which can save homeowners about 10 percent on their water bills, and as the average water bill per year in the UK according to Money Helper is “£194 a year” this means you could save up to £19.40 a year. 

It is imperative that we conserve water as there is current a water crisis due to people and companies misusing this essential resource. As 70% of our planet being covered in water it is easy to think that it will always be plentiful. However, this is not the case as we need freshwater to: drink, to farm and to live but only 3% of the world’s water is fresh water, and two-thirds of that is tucked away in frozen glaciers or otherwise unavailable for our use (but if melted the global sea levels would rise approximately 230 feet, thereby flooding every coastal city on the planet and cause irreversible damage). 

This means we can only use 1% of all the water on Earth, so it essential that we conserve it by reducing are water footprint at home and buy water efficient material and food. 

For example, we should avoid using materials such as cotton which need between “10,000 to 20,000 litres to of water to produce one kilogram of cotton” according to Common Objective. We should also avoid food such as: avocados and almonds. Almonds require an average water footprint of  “3.6 gallons of water per almond” as stated Science Direct, this is because it is grown in dry desert like conditions.

Likewise, try to avoid red meat as it takes approximately “1,847 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef” according to Denver Water and this is incredibly water intensive. These are simple ways to reduce your water footprint.

Your saving summary: consider the different water consumption levels used in the growing and producing of the foods you eat and try turning off the tap when brushing your teeth and washing your face. Also, by swapping to navy showers and fixing any leaks in your home can save you an astounding £128 per person per year and up to 22,100 gallons of water per person per year. Save money and save the planet.