In the land down under we have our fair share of water restrictions. What does this mean for us in terms of trying to take care of ourselves and our gardens while trying to protect the planet?
Thankfully there are a number of water wise things we can do around the house to help lessen the impact of drought and water restrictions.
~ Skin care ~
When it comes to looking after our skin there are a number of things we can do to save on water usage.
1) Fill a medium bowl with warm water and use this for your cleansing routine. As appose to cleansing your skin in the shower where all that water gets washed down the drain. If you follow step 2 you can use this bowl of water on your garden.
2) Use eco friendly products that are safe for pouring down drains or using on gardens.
~ Body ~
We all know showers should be timed, we've heard it all before, but are you doing it?
1) Set a timer for your showers if you struggle to have short showers.
2) Shower less often. Gross, I hear you say, however, it's really not that bad for you. In fact washing too often leaves your skin dry and dehydrated.
3) Remember the old days of wash pitchers and bowls? They did this because water wasn't readily available on tap, nonetheless, they were onto something. Washing this way, filling a bowl with water and cleansing your body with a flannel is a great water wise way to freshen up.
~ Garden ~
In most places, gardening water restrictions are still in place and in places where people rely on boar water, those underground reservoirs are drying up.
1) Collect the water you rinse dishes with in a bucket kept by the sink. If this idea seem gross to you, simply empty your bucket regularly into other buckets outside. Use these buckets to water your plants; the thirsty one's first. If you're using products that don't harm the environment they shouldn't affect your garden, plus every thing's diluted.
Don't have a garden? Get a couple of indoor plants and feed them.
2) If you can be bothered or you really need the water, use the water you washed your dishes in. Again if you're using wholesome products this shouldn't harm your garden.
3) Reuse dishes that have seen better days in your garden: broken handle off coffee cup, baking dish cracked, porcelain jug cracked, old pasta pot with a hole in it. Scatter these about your garden to gather small bits of water to use on your garden. Every bit counts.
~ Cleaning ~
Cleaning is a chore. No one wants to do it (well... some do). We all believe mainstream products do the best job ever! The truth is natural products do a great job too and in many instances are even easier to use.
1) I was always taught to clean the bath like so. Fill a bath with a small amount of water, around 2cms deep at the plug hole end. Wrap a natural soap bar in a flannel and dip the flannel and soap in the water [make video of this]. Run the flannel along the dirty areas, the baths walls and base. First thing you will notice is how easy and effective this is! The best way ever. [link].
Clean the basin and counter tops this way as well. For the toilet swishle some natural soap in a bucket while you fill it up with water, use this water to clean the loo, along with home made green cleaner.
2) Clean natural mineral brushes with natural soap as well and use this soaps for hands too. Natural soaps do a great job at keeping hands clean and helping to kill unwanted germs (while keeping good germs alive).
3) You can collect this water and use it on your garden also.
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