The bathroom accounts for 65% of your household water use, with showers using the second highest amount of water out of any item in your home. You can save water by reducing you shower time; try to strive for five-minute showers to reduce up to 10,000 litres of water per year!

There are other steps you can take to conserve water in the bathroom and help protect our water supply source. Turning the faucet off while you are lathering soap, brushing your teeth or shaving are part of living green.

Checking for water leaks regularly is also an important step for changing your water saving habits. Water leaks can account for 14% of indoor water use due to leaky toilets, faucets, and showerheads. Simple and inexpensive repairs can prevent our drinking water from being wasted. Repair any leaky fixtures and check your toilet at least once a year for undetected leaks.

Choose high-efficiency fixtures for your bathroom! Increasing the efficiency of your home will save water, energy and money. Replace outdated, inefficient water fixtures in your bathroom with a high-efficiency model.

For additional resources, visit:

• Water Wise Bathrooms
• High-Efficiency Toilets
• High-Efficiency Showerhead
• High-Efficiency Faucet
• Leak Detection Tips

Living green indoors helps protect the health of the environment, including waterbodies and aquatic life. Practicing source control by knowing what not to flush is crucial to preventing sanitary sewer system blockages, since unflushable waste causes costly blockages. Unflushable waste is any kind of waste that is flushed down the toilet but shouldn’t be.

It's a toilet, not a trash can!

Keep baby wipes, disinfecting wipes, and other similar products that are often labeled as "flushable" out of the toilet. These wipes accumulate in your household sewer pipes and form blockages, which cause sewer backups. Dispose of wipes in the garbage and remember the flushable Three Ps: Pee, Poo and toilet Paper.

Unflushable waste also includes medication. Did you know that if you flush medication, it can end up in the ocean? Think Live Green and return your medication to a local pharmacy to protect the environment from contamination.

Additional source control resources can be found here:

• What you put down the drain matters! (PDF)
• Unflushable Waste
• Drain-friendly cleaning recipes (PDF)

Septic systems are common in the capital region and they function as an important wastewater treatment option for homeowners. If your system is working properly, it is an environmentally friendly and economically sound treatment option. If it's not working properly, it can cause environmental issues and health issues in our community.

Live Green Indoors by protecting your septic system in the bathroom!

Your septic system is designed to handle human waste and toilet paper only. All other household products, detergents, chemicals and personal care products can negatively impact the system.

Pay attention to what goes down the drain with these tips:

• Every drop counts! Practicing water conservation helps prevent your septic system from overloading, helping solids settle in the tank.
• Clean green. Use environmentally-friendly cleaning products to protect the beneficial bacteria in your septic system.
• Remember the unflushables! Do not flush diapers, wipes, feminine hygiene products, cotton swabs, dental floss, and other clogging items.

For more information on residential septic systems, review the following video resources:

• Part One: How Septic Systems Work
• Part Two: What Can Go Wrong with Your Septic System
• Part Three: Operating and Maintaining a Septic System
  
  

When we recycle the products we use in the bathroom, we are taking a responsible approach and supporting a system where these materials can be used over and over again. Each item you recycle helps divert waste from the landfill, helping to extend the lifespan of Hartland Landfill Facility for use by future generations.

As a resident of the capital region, find out if your items are accepted in the Blue Box program, visit a Recycle BC depot, or bring your recyclables to the Hartland Depot.

Resources:

• Blue Box Program
• Myrecyclopedia
• Hartland Depot

Rainwater harvesting is simply the collection and storage of rainwater. Collecting rain from your downspouts to use on your lawn and garden helps to slow stormwater runoff, a rising issue in our region as we face climate change and increased rainfall.

Rainwater harvesting can also reduce your water consumption if planned accordingly and enough water is stored to water your garden during the dry summer months. 

Resources:

• Manage your Rainwater (46 sec video)
• Rainwater Harvesting (PDF)
• Guide to Cisterns & Detention tanks
• Nanaimo's Rainwater Harvesting Handbook

Rain Gardens are landscape features designed to capture stormwater runoff from hard surface areas such as roofs, roads and parking lots. They consist of sunken garden spaces where runoff can pond and infiltrate into deep constructed soils and then into the native soils below. They need to be designed and installed carefully, however they are an effective option to manage our rain water.

Resources:

• Rain Gardens
• Building a Rain Garden (PDF)
• Manage Your Rainwater (46 sec video)
• CRD Design Guidelines for Raingardens
• Rain Garden Handbook from Western Washington

Native species of plants have thrived in our region for millennia and have evolved with native insects, birds and mammals to support each other. They are also water-wise and require little watering once established in the right spot. Native trees and shrubs can help us to manage our rain water by absorbing and storing rain where it falls in our yards. Creating an absorbent landscape around your property is one of the best things you can do to reduce and prevent flooding as we face a changing climate, with increased rainfall.  

• Native Plants
• HAT Native Plant Gardening Guide
• Garden with Native Plants (30 sec video)
• CRD Design Guidelines for Absorbent Landscapes

As we build our communities, native vegetation is removed to create roads, driveways, and buildings. These hard surfaces are impervious and rain can not absorb. This creates stormwater runoff and can cause flooding, erosion, pollution and habitat degradation in our creeks, streams and shorelines.

Take action by choosing pervious paving options such as brick, grass or gravel to allow the rain to naturally absorb where it falls and reduce hardscaped areas, where possible.

• Pervious Pavement
• Go Pervious!  (44 sec video)
• CRD Design Guidelines for Pervious Paving
• District of Saanich Absorbent Landscapes