Green Living

Ideas for saving water

First a big thank you to those of you who wrote to me with encouragement and ideas. I have included your ideas this time. Please keep them coming.

1. If you boil more water than you need when making a cup of tea, fill a flask with the extra boiling water it will be fine for an instant coffee or for cooking vegetables later. This saves electricity and water*.

2. If you don't already have a "toilet hippo" cut the top off a large plastic container and place it in you toilet cistern this will save gallons of water a week*.

3. Use your microwave as for scrambled eggs, porridge and baked potatoes. The microwave uses far less energy than conventional cooking.

4. Clean and collect bottle tops and other aluminium foil. This can either go in a Alu-Can bank or in your green recycling box.

5. Put small unusable scraps of soap in a spare washing tablet bag. Hang it up as a soap-on-a-rope.

* You may be wondering why we should be conserving water after having record rainfall and flooding. It is not water itself that is being conserved here it is expensively treated drinking water. Clean drinking water is something we take for granted but it requires purifying and storing. It is a resource not to be squandered lightly.

The aim of this column is to publicise good ideas for both the committed and the reluctant environmentalist. I have some ideas to contribute but for this to really work I will need your ideas too. So please email me at Nigel_O_Tuffnell@btinternet.com and together we might just make a difference.

Revd Nigel Tuffnell