Water Conservation

By Franco Zinzi

All our best efforts aside, Americans still use 35 billion gallons of drinking water a day. Restrooms, kitchens, and landscaping are the three most water intensive areas, and most restaurants have all 3! You might be surprised at how many water utility companies provide water conservation tips, often on Internet websites.

There is a mountain of information out there for the restaurateur who wants to train employees to practice conservation. Most suggestions are merely commonsense; a few are truly inventive. Some of the types that follow were adapted from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority in Boston.

KITCHEN AND SERVICE AREAS

- Turn off the "continuous flow" feature of drain trays on coffee/milk/soda beverage islands. Clean them thoroughly, as required. Many newer appliances have water use requirements set under the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005. For instance, new commercial dish machines have perfected designs that take water usage well below one gallon per rack.

- Attention to new water-saving devices, such as nozzle design and power-wash features, water use can be reduced by as much as 50 percent. On older machines, check the manufacturer's instructions to see if the dish machine spray heads could be decreased to lower-flow ones. Do your food thawing and utensil presoaking in tubs or basins of drinking water, not running water.

- Better yet, allow for longer thawing times in refrigeration, so you won't have to use water to speed up the procedure. Boilerless steamers are the equipment of choice for water savings. Adjust ice-making equipment to make and dispense less ice when much less is required. The big mistake is purchasing an ice machine that's too small or just the correct size for the operation, simply because ice machines run on an economy of scale: The larger the machine, the a lot more efficiently it runs.

- If an operation has a machine that overproduces, it can merely be put on a timer and set to be on during off-peak hours (when drinking water or electricity rates are cheaper) and off throughout peak hours.

RESTROOMS

- Repair leaky toilets and faucets. One leaking toilet can waste 50 gallons of drinking water a day; a dripping faucet can waste a minimum of 75 gallons a week.

- Install aerators, spring-loaded valves, electronic sensors, or timers on all faucets. Replace worn-out fixtures with water-saving ones.

- Apply drinking water conservation stickers on mirrors to remind both employees and clients.

LANDSCAPING


- One inch of water each week is sufficient to sustain an established lawn or landscape.

- Gauge rainfall, and augment with only as a lot water as is required to equal one inch per week. This means monitoring the watering schedule - what you'll require in the summer is not the same as in the fall, for instance.

- After a heavy rain, wait at least 10 days to drinking water again.

- Do not water on overly windy, rainy, or hot days, when more water evaporates than gets to your landscaping.

- Investigate a drip irrigation program for flowers, shrubs, and new plantings. Drip irrigation saves 30 to 70 percent of the water used by an overhead sprinkler system.

- Sweep sidewalks, loading docks, and parking lots instead of hosing them down.

The water-guzzling capital from the United States is Las Vegas, with its massive (and highly landscaped) casinos, backyard pools, and green boulevards transforming what was once desert land. Las Vegas uses an estimated 325 gallons of water per individual each day. At that rate, the region is expected to run out by the mid-2030s, according to some experts.

The city's hospitality industry is finally embracing conservation measures, from water-saving plumbing fixtures to lawn-watering restrictions, to new types of water purification technology. Do these individual efforts matter? Apparently so. Within one year, Las Vegas's water consumption had decreased by 13 percent.

Franco Zinzi has been involved with online marketing for nearly 3 years and likes to write on various subjects. Come visit his latest website which discusses of Restaurant Fridges and Jenn Air Fridges for the owner of his own business.

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