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to water vegetables, flowers, and grass. If you live in an apartment, you can at least keep some of it to water indoor plants.

Laundry water in the days when I grew up was always bucketed or tipped out flowerbeds or grass-again, even in winter when it froze over for a time. The moisture went directly back into the soil where it came from. Personally I don't recommend dumping soapy water onto vegetables. Some of them do not like soap.

A lot of these things aren't possible today, but bathtubs aren't that hard to bucket out water if you wish to recycle at least some of it. Washers are harder. But when you have time, you can set most washers to "beep" at different cycles. Learn to know when clothing has gone through all but the last drain cycle and stop it. Bucket or siphon out at much as you can-and there is a lot-before setting it on to that final drain and spin cycle. By this time it's basically clean water. Use it for gardening, lawn or even hair washing purposes.

We all know the obvious water conservation purposes. Wet your toothbrush, turn the water off, and then only turn it on again when you need to rinse. If you wash dishes by hand (most modern dishwashers actually use less water than doing them by hand), run just enough water to wash. Don't let water run as you rinse. Do a "rinse" basin if you don't have a dual sink. If that gets too soapy, dump the water onto your garden, grass or houseplants before running more clean water. Catch rainwater (it is great for hair washing) if you can.

Most of all let your children see you conserving water and they will do the same. I have.

Learn more about this author, Margaret Shauers.
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