Use water in a smart way
Of the many billions of liters of water on Earth, only 3% is freshwater for humans, animals and plants to share. And only 0.5% is drinking water. It takes energy and other resources to produce our clean drinking water. By conserving water and reducing your use, you can also save resources.
In Sweden, we use around 140 liters of drinking water per person and day. More than half of all the water we use is for personal hygiene. There are a number of simple tips to help you make better use of our precious drinking water, like turning off the tap when you brush your teeth and shave, and choosing to take a shower instead of a bath. At the same time, you save money by reducing your consumption.
Tips in your everyday life
Tips in your everyday life
About six liters of water flow out of the tap every minute. Turning off the tap when you brush your teeth can save many liters. A family of four saves about 100 liters every day if they turn off the water when they brush their teeth.
Use a bowl when washing dishes or rinsing vegetables to save a lot of water. If you wash dishes in a dishwasher, fill it completely before you start it.
Turning off the shower when you use soap and shampoo your hair can save about 50 liters of water per shower.
Fill the washing machine completely before starting it. A washing machine uses about 50 liters of water for each wash, regardless of how much laundry is in it.
If you keep a jug of water in the fridge, you'll always have cold water and won't need to flush out clean drinking water while waiting for the tap to get cold. However, if the tap has been turned off for a long time, you may want to flush out some extra water before drinking. This water can be used to water your flowers.
Filling your pool with drinking water is an unimaginable luxury. If you have a swimming pool, you can save a lot of energy and water by covering it. It greatly reduces evaporation, which means you don't have to refill the water as often.
A dripping tap can leak the equivalent of 11 bathtubs in a month, so it's worth checking and fixing dripping taps.
Plants like rainwater. Collect rainwater to water your plants. You will save on clean drinking water.
Water the flowers early in the morning or late in the evening. This reduces evaporation and allows the plants to absorb the water better.
A sprinkler dispenses almost eight liters of water per minute. That's more than 150 liters of water in just 20 minutes. Water with a watering can instead, preferably with rainwater.
Autumn and late summer are the right times to sow grass and plant hedges. The sun is not as hot and less water is needed to get a good foundation for next year's lawn.
It is important to check your taps and toilets. If they're dripping all the time, you're using a lot of water, which will cost you unnecessary money. Check that you don't have dripping taps or leaking toilets. You can check by turning off all the taps in the house (the dishwasher or washing machine shouldn't be on at the time either) and then checking if the wheels in the water meter display are still or spinning. If they are moving, water is dripping/flowing somewhere in the house. Then you need to find out where and fix it.