Some twenty years ago I met these guys in San Francisco at a volunteer's conference. Eventually we became friends and I was invited to stay at their place. The first time I stayed in their house I saw that they had bucket in the bathroom. I didn't ask why or what they did with it. None of my business, right? Eventually I realized that they were conserving water, my question was WHY? They live in northern California and at the time there was no drought.
A weekend after I came back to San Diego, a neighbor across the street was on top of his roof washing the leaves of the trees in his backyard with a hose. Mind you that it was the middle of the summer. That did not make any sense to me. People in northern California are conserving water and here we are in Southern California wasting it. If this doesn't sound ridiculous to you, please note that San Diego imports most of its water from Northern California and the Colorado river, not to mention that it doesn't rain here for about six months a year. Needless to say I decided to adopt a bucket of water and started conserving water then.
So here is the deal. I have a 2.5 gallon bucket in my bathroom, every morning before taking a shower I fill it up with the cold water that otherwise would go down the drain. Then, I use it to flush the toilet after doing #1. When I have guests I store the bucket as I don't expect them to do the same. However, I think I have saved a little bit of water every day for a few years and so can you. It is not hard, and if you brush your teeth every morning, you can fill up a bucket of water and reuse it. Easy enough? Cheers.
