Super Eco

Photo credit: OiMax on flickr

“Water is the one substance from which the earth can conceal nothing; it sucks out its innermost secrets and brings them to our very lips.”
Jean Giraudoux (1882-1944)

Although the United States has one of the safest, most bountiful supplies of potable drinking water, there is no guarantee that the water coming out of our tap is completely safe.

The EPA offers some very helpful water safety guidelines and testing protocols. Once our water has been tested, we can choose from the many water purification options available.

Here are some easy, green measures that we can all take:

1. Waste-not, want-not, even though we may have plenty of water, it is important to remember that the most of the world does not. Conserving our fresh water resources is the most fundamentally green first step. Checking all of our faucets for leaks and keeping those valuable drips and drops from being wasted, is a good common sense measure.
2. Recycling gray water from our home and using rain barrels to collect runoff from roof downspouts to water our gardens and houseplants saves a ton of valuable drinking water yearly.
3. Whether or not we have your own well, it is so very important not to use pesticides or chemical fertilizers on our lawn or in your gardens, what we spread around on the ground winds up in the nation's water supply. Properly dispose of unused prescriptions and medications, do not flush them down the toilet! Clean green, being cautious about what products we use to clean up around our homes helps to safeguard the water supply.
4. Using an in-home water purifier is always a great idea. While reverse osmosis water purification can be effective for commercial applications, it wastes much more water than it purifies and can be very expensive to properly maintain. Pressure from consumers and environmental activists has caused Britta to team up with Preserve to begin recycling their filters here in the United States (they already recycle them in Europe). Writing to companies like PUR will hopefully inspire them to follow suit.
5. Ditch the plastic water bottle habit for a reusable green one that you fill at home from your own purified water source.