By making just a few small changes to your daily routine, you can save water, save money and preserve water supplies for future generations. Yes you can save money by being environmentally conscious. The average household spends as much as $500 per year on its water and sewer bill. By making just a few simple changes to use water more efficiently, you could save about $170 per year. If all U.S. households installed water-efficient appliances, the country would save more than 3 trillion gallons of water and more than $18 billion dollars per year! Also, itt takes a considerable amount of energy to deliver and treat the water you use everyday. American public water supply and treatment facilities consume about 56 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year—enough electricity to power more than 5 million homes for an entire year. For example, letting your faucet run for five minutes uses about as much energy as letting a 60-watt light bulb run for 14 hours.

Challenge: Leaky faucets that drip at the rate of one drip per second can waste more than 3,000 gallons of water each year.

Solution: If you’re unsure whether you have a leak, read your water meter before and after a two-hour period when no water is being used. If the meter does not read exactly the same, you probably have a leak.

Challenge: A leaky toilet can waste about 200 gallons of water every day.

Solution: To tell if your toilet has a leak, place a drop of food coloring in the tank; if the color shows in the bowl without flushing, you have a leak.

For more information, read about the WaterSense annual Fix a Leak Week.