Good Better Best
In our premier issue we reviewed ways to conserve water in the kitchen, bathroom, and outdoors, but here we examine behaviors that play a key role in keeping your local water supply clean. Believe it or not, everyday activities around the house can contribute to polluted runoff. On a rainy day, fertilizers from lawns, oil from driveways, and toxic paints and solvents from decks can get washed into streams, rivers, and lakes, contaminating the local watershed. Here are some positive actions you can take to reduce pollution and increase water quality in your community.
Reduce Runoff
GOOD: Sink drains and toilets are not trash cans. Disposing of inappropriate items down drains and toilets can cause sewer back-ups and harm the public’s health and the environment. Items that should only go in the trash include: band-aids, cleaning wipes, dental floss, cotton balls, hair, and especially expired or unused prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals — these build up over time leaving trace amounts of chemicals in the water supply.
BETTER: In the yard and garden, apply only natural fertilizer and refrain from using herbicides and pesticides. Compost, manure, bone meal, and peat are excellent alternatives for a healthy landscape. Indoors, use only nontoxic household products whenever possible. There are many certified organic, environmentally friendly cleaning and personal care products that do not contain any hazardous chemicals, which might otherwise end up in the water supply.
BEST: Properly maintain your car. This will reduce the amounts of oil, coolant, antifreeze, and other hazardous fluids that otherwise leak onto the ground, inevitably getting washed into gutters and down storm drains. Remember that one quart of motor oil that seeps into groundwater can result in 250,000 gallons of polluted drinking water. Also, when purchasing oil make sure the store or service station has a program to buy back waste oil and dispose of it properly.