I believe that water is our most precious and endangered natural resource. As you can imagine then, water management is a vital task for each and every person, especially in Western society. Water conservation helps reduce the impact of water pollution and depletion on our water systems, and it’s something you can easily do wherever you go. Water management just takes a little planning and thought to reduce your water use and get smart.

Water management lessons have been my blessing over the years. Landscaping and water conservation were forced on us during the droughts in Oklahoma. The smart shower was learned during the Berkeley, California droughts of ’77. But the most intriguing and possibly the most versatile water conservation training received to date is washing dishes with minimal water.

I had a cabin in the mountains above Boulder that I used as a retreat for many years. It is a one-bedroom cabin, with a closed porch; a wood/charcoal stove heated the cabin and cooked my food; there is electricity and cold running water in the summer. It’s a great little place.

During the summer I could turn on a faucet in the “kitchen” sink to get cold spring water. I had to heat the water before washing dishes with it, to get the best result on clean dishes. That taught me a little care in my use of water. But in the winter I had to collect snow to melt and heat before I could wash the dishes (at least until the opening of spring was discovered and I was able to trudge through the snow to collect ice water to heat the dishes). The winter dishes is when I really gave my water conservation lesson. I could wash oven dishes with a gallon of water, half for washing and half for rinsing. At first I was happy that I didn’t have to collect, melt and heat the water to clean my dishes, but then I realized that it was a wonderful lesson in how to save water.

When you have to collect your water, or have a limited supply, you learn to treat your water carefully. Campers and RVers likely share the same passion for ways to conserve water, at least while on the trail, as I developed in the cabin. Part of the secret is recycling the water. And another secret is to adopt that philosophy wherever you are.

Now, I don’t expect you to move to an undeveloped area and start collecting your own water to join my water wise group. But you could start your water conservation program by pretending you have a limited amount of water to work with and learn how to get by with less water, not only for washing dishes but also for bathing/showering, laundry, and lawn work, not to mention the other ways we use water on a daily basis. Once you make a habit of it, you’ll find that you conserve water wherever you go.

When it comes to dirty dishes, the big question is what saves more water: wash dishes by hand or in the dishwasher? Most people use much more water washing dishes by hand than using the dishwasher. Germany’s University of Bonn studied this issue and reports that dishwashers are more efficient (although their partner in this was a dishwasher manufacturer, which may have tainted the study) with water, power and soap. A dishwasher uses one-sixth of the water as by hand, a dishwasher uses half the energy, and less soap is used. Of course, that depends on how old your dishwasher is and assuming you have a full dishwasher.

The average dishwasher uses six gallons of water per cycle (the average E-Star rated dishwasher uses 4 gallons per cycle). If you have a sink faucet that uses only two gallons of water per minute and you can let the water run for less than three minutes, you can wash dishes as efficiently as an average dishwasher (two minutes of running water gets you a match with an E-Star Rated Dishwasher). Old dishwashers use more water and energy than new ones, so that’s a factor in your personal analysis on this machine vs. hand wash issue.

Washing dishes is just one way of using water in the kitchen. This is where it gets really exciting and good! There are other sneaky ways water is consumed in the kitchen without you even realizing it. Here are a couple of tips to help you master water conservation in the kitchen:

• Do not let the water run when you wash by hand.
• Soak dirty pots and pans after use. Put a little water in the bottom of the saucepan and then cover it; cooked food is “soaked” as if by magic.
• Fill two containers with water, one for washing and one for rinsing.
• Run the dishwasher only when it is full.
• Do not rinse dishes before placing them in the dishwasher; just remove the larger particles and let the dishwasher do its thing.
• Fix leaks and don’t let the faucet drip.
• When you need hot water, collect the cold water and use it for other things. Or heat the water on the stove.
• Use as little detergent as possible because dishes rinse faster.
• Do not defrost food under running water.
• When cleaning vegetables, do not let the water run. Instead, rinse them in a pan or sink of water, using as little water as possible to get the job done.
• Use the garbage disposal less. That means scraping up food scraps in the trash can or compost pile.
• If you like to drink cold water, store it in the refrigerator instead of running the water to get the coldest water possible from your tap.

You may have even more tips to share, in which case, do it!

This is just one room in your home where you can focus on water management, and it’s an important one. Take these lessons and extend them to your bathroom and laundry room to make an even bigger difference.