Here's a fun family activity that will also help you save water.

In March we talked a great deal about water. One of the ways we use water is in our toilet. When we are aware of how much water we use we can help cut down in different places. Below is a how-to on how to save water and have some family fun. Give each child their own supplies. If you end up with more bottles than you have toilets, let your kids give one away to their grandparents or a friend.

Step One

For each toilet in the house, get one plastic bottle (this keeps it out of the trash, landfills, and recycling centers). We chose a 64 ounce (half gallon) juice bottle that is a little more narrow so that it will fit easily in the tank of the toilet. Make sure there is at least three gallons of water left in the tank so it functions appropriated. Most toilets have a five gallon tank, so as long as you do not find some two-gallon jug that somehow fits in the back of your toilet you should be fine.

Step Two

Put about an inch or two of sand, pebbles or rocks in the bottom of your bottles. We had tons of rocks in our front flower-beds, so we decided to clean those off for this purpose and then place them in the bottles.

Step Three

Check the weight to make sure that it is heavy enough to stay down in the water.

Step Four

Fill the remaining space in the bottle with water. Screw the lid on tightly.

Step Five

Remove lid of toilet tank.

Step Six

Flush the toilet. As the water goes out of the tank, place your bottle in a place that is clear of any operating mechanism in the tank. As the water fills back in, your bottle will displace any water that would have filled in there.

Step Seven

Start saving water!

Through this process, you can save ten or more gallons of water per day, depending on how often you flush the toilet. With each flush you will save the size of your Toilet Tank Jug. Just for fun, let's do a little math problem.

If you have 2 toilets in your house with a 5 Gallon Tank each and you flush each toilet 6 times per day, 7 days per week, 52 weeks per year, how much water will you theoretically use?

The answer is 21,840 Gallons per year. That's just for toilets!

Now consider the half-gallon reduction of each flush. It drops to 19,656 gallons, a savings of 2,184 gallons per year = $16.26 per year in water savings. It may not seem like much, but with more toilets and more flushing reduction, this number can go up.

Your family may have flushing rules in the house. Maybe it's the old phrase of "If it's yellow, let it mellow..." Maybe not. Do what works for your family and we can all save water together.

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