When a disaster hits, you likely won’t have time to run to the store. The supplies you have available to you at the time it happens are all you’re going to have for the duration. In situations like that, resource conservation becomes paramount.
We’ve talked about resource conservation a bit before, but in a different context. This time around, we’re focused on sheltering in place at home.
When water isn’t flowing from the taps, and you have to rely on what you have stored, it makes sense to be as stingy as you can be with it. You want to stretch the supply as far as possible. Here are some tips to keep in mind.
Water Conservation – Hygiene
A spray bottle filled with clean water can work well for washing hands. Just a squirt or two, lather up, then a squirt to rinse off. I’ve found the mist setting tends to work the best. If you don’t have a spray bottle, you can use a plastic water bottle with a small hole punched in the cap. Keep a large bowl or basin in the sink to catch water from washing and rinsing so it can be reused for other purposes.
A supply of body wipes can help with underarms, groin, and other body areas. This is far from ideal, but it’ll do the job until the situation improves.
Water Conservation – Washing Dishes
Use disposable plates and bowls. While this creates more waste, it also conserves water as you don’t need to wash them. Assuming you’re using paper plates and bowls, you can burn them rather than tossing them into the trash. We don’t use these products in our home on a day-to-day basis. With it just being my wife and I these days, it’s easy enough to wash dishes. But we’ve stocked up a small supply of paper plates and bowls, just in case.
For pans and dishes that do need to be washed, consider the three-basin method used by many campers. Set up three basins, which you might have acquired from your local dollar store, well in advance of any emergencies. In the first one, put hot water with just a bit of dish soap. The second one gets clear hot water. The third has cold or room temperature clear water with a few drops of bleach. Always scrape dishes and pots as clean as possible before putting them into the first basin. Let dishes air dry.
Water Conservation – Recycling and Reusing
Whenever possible, use water for more than one purpose. For example, dealing with human waste can be problematic in a grid-down scenario. However, provided that there aren’t any problems downstream, so to speak, toilets can be used even in the absence of water pressure. The tank can be filled manually, and the toilet can be flushed as normal.
The water for doing so could be repurposed from some of the previous uses mentioned. For example, after washing dishes, the dirty water can be poured into a bucket in the bathroom. As the toilet is used, refill the tank from the bucket. You might want to filter out any larger food particles first, just to make sure they don’t muck up the works inside the tank.
Water saved after washing hands, as well as that from rinsing dishes, could be used for limited laundry purposes. A five-gallon bucket with a lid and a clean toilet plunger will do the trick. Here’s how to put it together.
Water is a precious resource. We use it for so many things, from food prep to hygiene and more. If you don’t have an easy source for it in an emergency, you’ll definitely want to conserve it as best you can.
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