Kitchen
Water Use
The average household
uses about 11 percent of its total indoor water in the kitchen. Water
is used in the kitchen in a variety of ways: washing dishes
( in a dishwasher and by hand), and for general cooking
and cleaning purposes. By carefully planning your activities, you
can reduce water used in the kitchen significantly!
The dishwasher is one of the biggest water users in the kitchen. A typical
dishwasher uses about 25 gallons of water per load. However, some of the
newer, more energy- and water-efficient models use as little as 13 gallons
of water per load.
As you know, the
more dishes you can get into the dishwasher per load, the more efficiently
the water is used! So only do full loads of dishes, and you’ll be using
your water wisely.
If
you don’t have a dishwasher, try filling each side of the sink with water
- one side with soapy water, the other with clean water. Just like with
the dishwasher, try to do as many dishes as you can when hand washing.
Depending on the size of your sink, you will be using approximately 10
gallons of water per "load". If you only have one sink, start by first
filling the basin with soapy water, washing your dishes and stacking them,
then draining the sink and filling it with clean water to rinse.
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 Did
you know that some of the water you use in cooking could be resued for
other purposes? Try keeping your water from cooked vegetables or pasta
to use later in watering your houseplants, or even outdoors! Many times
the water contains nutrients that will actually benefit your plants!
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Try to identify which
activities you could perform without the water running. For instance,
filling the sink with a little bit of cold water to wash vegetables is
much more efficient than letting the water run.
If there are times
in your kitchen activities where you prefer to leave the water running,
try installing a kitchen faucet aerator. In contrast to bathroom faucet
aerators, kitchen faucet aerators actually put out more water per minute.
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