Conserving water isn't just about water efficiency

Everything you do, every day is in some way related to water. Water conservation can be as simple as turning off a light when you don't need it on or recycling a plastic bottle rather than throwing it in the trash. The important thing awareness. How often do you drive by a house or place of business (day or night) and see a light on that doesn't need to be on?

- A recent United States-wide tally shows that power generation requires 655 billion gallons of water a year.

- Useing a compact fluorescent light bulb rather than an incandecant will not only save 60-70% in energy costs, it will also save as much as 4,000 gallons of water every year.

- Letting a hot water faucet run for 5 minutes uses about the same amount of energy as burning a 60-watt bulb for 14 hours.
This equates to approximately 8 to 16gallonsof water used to burn one 60-Watt light bulb for 12 hours per day. Over the duration of one year this one incandescent light bulb would consume about 3,000 to 6,300 gallons of water. It is estimated that there are about 111 million occupied housing units in the U.S. (United States Census Bureau 2005, so it much higher now presumably). If each housing unit was to burn one 60 watt incandecent light bulb for 12 hours each day, over the course of a year, it would add up to 336 to 656 billion gallons of water use.

- One recycled plastic bottle saves enough energy to power a 60 watt light bulb for 6 hours.

AP