Every Drop Counts

For the past few weeks, my boyfriend and I have been using a plastic wash tub in the sink to catch the water from dishes or anything else we do in the kitchen sink. The idea is to capture the water to use on our plants. I am using only biodegradable soap so I assume it won't hurt the plants. Its very simple. Instead of letting the water wash down the drain, we catch it in the tub and then empty it when it gets full or when we need to start with clean water. I knew that a lot of water was wasted by the average household--but I must say I have been stunned by the number of times we need to dump the bucket. It really brings home the idea that convenience will be the downfall of our earth. I would love to have the money to spend on a graywater system--but I don't. Nor do we have the time to construct our own. In a way, I think this is better. The bucket cost me about $2--the soap is about $3.50 for a bottle which lasts more than a month. It takes me about a minute and a half to walk out the door and dump the bucket. Every time I do it, I feel good about conserving water. The only down side is that I dump food chunks and all because I figure its good for the plants--but my dog has other ideas. Often I go out to my cherry trees to find that he's eaten away all of the bark mulch because they smelled particularly desirable. Overall I think its a small price to pay.