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Kitchen Warriors Guide To Saving Water

Kitchen Warriors Guide To Saving Water

March is World Water Month, a month to celebrate water as a divine life force and to raise awareness of the billions of people around the world who still don’t have access to fresh running water.

Just within recent years, many South Africans were reminded of that struggle and notion when the country experienced what experts are calling, ‘the worst drought in several decades’. Most of South Africa experienced severe water shortages, including some whole communities going without water for weeks.

Since last year, 2020, South Africa’s state of disaster for drought was repealed. With the rainfall also came a new perspective and a re-education on the blessing, social necessity and need for water to be preserved and respected. More people have become mindful of their water consumption and innovations have been implemented for water reserves and recycling, like with grey water systems and ‘Jojo’ rainwater collection tanks.

As we know, to make big progress, small steps must be taken. Each of us can make a difference by changing our habits and practices when it comes to water usage. Besides the shortened showers and holding on the car wash, we explore some of the ways we can also save water in the kitchen:

  1. Defrost your food overnight in the fridge instead of thawing in water. Or use the microwave on defrost.
  2. Hold up on the fuss and extra water to scrape off stubborn grime. Instead, soak pots overnight to lift burnt foods and use less water.
  3. Keep a jug of cold water in the fridge if you’re always running the tap until the water is cool to drink.
  4. Same goes for running the tap until it’s hot, instead collect that running water to fill your drinking jug, use for cooking, to fill the ice tray, pet’s water bowls or feed to the plants.
  5. Don’t waste the water used for boiling pasta or veggies, allow to cool and then feed that grey water to your plants.
  6. Wash your vegetables and dishes in a kitchen sink bath instead of under running water, soap your dishes and then plug the sink to create a bath of clean water to rinse in.
  7. For dishwashing, only wash dishes once there is a full load… you’ll save electricity too.
  8. Instead of pre-rinsing, scrape food off the plate, or use a bowl of water and sponge/cloth to wet wipe before dishwashing.
  9. Bucket system guys, bucket it! You’ll be surprised at how much water lands up in the drain once you start collecting water that’s run from the kitchen sink. We suggest a large container/Tupperware (lid off of course) or a small wash up basin. All the water collected can be fed to your plants.
  10. Last but not least, let everyone in the household know, so they can support the new practices and understand the bigger picture and the restrictions. The point is to expand awareness so we can tackle this together. Water is Life.