16 Ways To Stop Wasting Water At Home & Why It's So Important

Years ago, a teacher shared a water experience that had always stayed with her and has since stayed with me.

Shortly after arriving at college, she remembered brushing her teeth next to her new roommate. "What are you doing?" her roommate asked her, gesturing to the tap she'd left on as she brushed. My teacher didn't realize what the big deal was until she looked over at her roommate's tap and saw it was shut off. The roommate came from a dry area in California, my teacher from a water-rich town on the East Coast. By the time they met each other as teens, they'd formed vastly different views on the same resource.

This story illustrates why water can be a tricky resource to talk about. Unless you live in a water-stressed area, it's easy to assume that it doesn't really matter how much of it you use on a daily basis, that the taps will always just keep on flowing.

Over the last century, global water consumption has skyrocketed with industrialization and population growth. According to data from the World Bank, we are now using at least 495% more water than we were at the beginning of the 20th century. As of 2014, the country withdrawing the most freshwater was India, followed by China and then the United States.

In water-scarce areas where the demand for freshwater outpaces supply, it's easy to understand why wasting the resource is harmful. If you live somewhere that's naturally dry and needs to import its own water supply or is dependent on variable rainfall, you likely place a lot of value on water conservation already.

But if you live in a place that isn't water-stressed (you can find out the overall water risk of your region on this map), you might be wondering why your personal water use matters so much. This is a question that Newsha Ajami, Ph.D., a hydrologist and the chief development officer of Berkeley Lab's Earth & Environmental Sciences Area, thinks about a lot.

After more than a dozen years studying water demand and urban water policy, she's come to the conclusion that small household changes can add up to make a huge difference on the community level. Consider, for example, the fact that if your home gets public water, it takes a fair amount of energy to transport that water to you, and whisk it away when you're done with it. And since all the water piped into our homes—from sink to toilet—is potable (ready to drink), it also requires a fair amount of chemicals to clean. Every time we waste water, we waste these resources, too.

Ajami emphasizes that thinking about your water use in the context of this whole system is the key to understanding the importance of your tap.

Issues like leaky pipes and outdated infrastructure mean that a fair amount of water is wasted before ever reaching its destination.

While individuals don't have much say over how their water gets to them, this next waste source is directly in our control.

Ajami points out that an incredible 50% of household water use in the U.S., on average, is used outside to water lawns. "The biggest irrigated crop we grow in the U.S. is actually grass," Ajami explains, pointing to a study published in the journal Environmental Management2 in 2005.

Beyond repairing leaks and switching over to drought-resistant ground covers, there are tons of other strategies you can employ to waste less water at home. To home in the ones that will have the greatest impact, Aung recommends first considering your unique water usage.

"There is no fixed formula for reducing water demand, so start by assessing your own behavior," he suggests. Do you tend to take long showers? Do you do a lot of laundry—even when the machine isn't full?