I am buying one of these here padlocks to put on my fridge/freezer!!! Hollow legs call for this as the kids keep opening the doors and having a look see, wasting energy. I keep telling them, "You are letting all of the balloons out the door and window of the house, up into the sky". There is an ad on TV at the moment, it is about energy wasting and it depicts helium filled ballons ecscaping out the door and windows of the house. They are beginning to GET it.
In other news, it was 24 degrees celcius here in Melb at middnight last night, HOT you may say, yes it was.
I have one green patch of grass under my washing line, due to me using the washing water on it. It stops my clothes dropping into dirt and then needing another go in the washing machine. Wondering if they will bring back the old 80's ad's on TV, "Don't be a Wally with water!" I am not sure it was a successful campaign, but everyone got the phrase stuck inn their mind and if you saw a person watering their garden, or washing their path down with our liquid Gold, you would yell out the window, "Hey, Don't be a Wally with water!
We all received a leaflet in the mail with a magnet on the back so we can put it on our fridges to let us know about our water restrictions. Funny thing is, alot of people now have the trendy Stainless Steele Fridges that are NOT MAGNETIC!! I reckon it was a waste of many thousands of dollars. They, the government, should have sent one of these little babies pictured above. A water proof radio to hang in the shower. Set the alarm for 3 minutes, or listen to one song as you wash and out you get. Providijng the song is not the extended version of Bat Out Of Hell which goes forever, LOL.
Anyhoo, am about to go onto the neopet site with my boy Nicholas and have us a fun time :)
8 comments:
That waterproof radio looks like a great idea! We don't have much worries about water shortages here, not yet anyway.
I definitely have hollered about standing in front of the fridge with the door open - don't all moms?!! I also have a definite need to turn out the lights when they are not needed - this borders on compulsion I am told! Don't like to be wasteful. Know what you mean.
So do you put buckets underneath the shower when you have a shower ? I do and use the water on the plants here in the unit block.
I read this article in the paper the other day about how we should all be getting that fake turf put on our lawns instead of growing real grass because real grass for Australians is a thing of the past with the drought and all. We're living in a crazy time!
No water shortage here at my place Cazzie, it flows freely from the tap.
Ok, so I am only joking, the problem is, others around Melbourne have that view, and don't realise what is actually going on.
Oh, and thanks for doing the guest blog spot over at my site. You should blog about it. hehe
Good for you for being aware of conserving. Whether it's mandatory or not we should all do it.
Willi, OMG, same, same, same!! The light situation happens here too. OCD for sure.
Huggies, yeah I have been doing that, and I have always had short showers too :)
M, yeah, in fact, I wish I had my camera on me the other day whislst driving through Nth Melb to work. THere was this Ford Station Wagon covered in fake turf..I kid you not!!! It looked awesome. If I owned this place I would invest in that turf, but as we don't then I will just have to go on
watering under me washing line.
Rebeccsa, I agree, people just don't think, can't help the dumb sometimes. Perhaps when they get fined by the water police they will have something to remember.
Ginnie, I agree, it is liquid gold for sure. Especialy when we are the driest continent on Earth here.
Its a funny thing, up here on the Mid North Coast of NSW (Ausralia) we have been on top level water restrictions since the late 1990's and this is permanent. You have no idea how it has changed most of us...our habits so that now we are all much more aware.
I was shocked in 2002 when down in Sydney I noticed people still using sprinklers to water their bloody gardens and grass. I can't recall the last time I saw one of those things.
Because we must hand hold the hose to do plants on an odds and evens system it is only the most dedicated who will take the time to do this.
Many shower with a plastic bucket or two in the shower and use that water on special plants...
A lot have rigged up washing machines to a garden watering system...whereas because we are out of town and on a septic system called Econocycle...all our waster water and other such is held in a tank and "reduced" to a sort of water I wouldn't drink but whic means the trees are fluoridhing (tee hee).
Cleaning teeth with the tap running is frowned upon and is really a learned habit. I grew up in the '60's on tank water with no sink in the bathroom, just a basin so its just a matter of remembering what we did and not hard at all.
Also we have three very large water tanks because we are not on town water supply and we always know how much water is in the tank...if it runs out its $300-$400 a tanker which doesn't last long...
The really big wasters are not the poor bloody farmers (they produce our food and cotton which we seem to forget) its heavy industries like Alcoa
Every home should receive a council subsidy repaid over 10 years or so on the rates and at minimal rate ratepayers can deal with - to install decent tanks. Or every council could forego all their "feel good cultural trashy things and overseas jaunts they do now which we pay for "...No office block should be allowed to be built without a water storage system which could feed back to greywater recycling systems if unneeded...the possibilities are endless and we can maintain cleanliness and hygiene in modern homes without adding any more hardship to those of us unable to afford it.
Reading all your comments makes me take a good hard look at my lifestyle. We are fortunate to NOT have these water hardships on a regular basis, here in New England. We might have a couple months in July & August when the temps are in the high 80's - 90's...and there are a few that water their gardens, or wash thier cars without guilt anyway. I try to conserve out of habit, but it's really not at a critical level, so for many it's easy to waste with out really having to thinking about it.
Thank you for sharing, and giving me something to ponder about. It NEVER occured to me to collect my waste water in the shower to water my plants. It's very sobering, and I appreciate hearing your stories.
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