Where does your Water IQ rank?
Can we play a game?
1. Which of the following uses less water?
a) taking a five minute shower
b) taking a bath
2. In the average household, which of the following wastes the MOST water per day?
a) running the tap while washing dishes
b) using a garbage disposal
c) a leaky toilet
d) long showers
3. How much water can you save per day by turning off the tap while brushing your teeth in the morning and at bedtime?
a) up to 2 gallons
b) up to 4 gallons
c) up to 8 gallons
d) up to 6 gallons
4. How much water is saved per flush with a high-efficiency toilet?
a) at least 1.4 gallons
b) at least 2.2 gallons
c) at least 6 gallons
5. How much of the water on earth is available for people’s everyday use?
a) more than 50%
b) 28%
c) less than 1%
d) 12%
Time to flip your computer over and check your answers!
1. A – Taking a five minute shower uses 10-25 gallons of water, while a full tub requires about 70 gallons. If you take a bath, stopper the drain immediately and adjust the temperature as you fill the tub.
2. C – A leaky toilet can waste about 200 gallons of water every day! To tell if your toilet is leaking, place a drop of food coloring in the tank; if the color shows in the bowl without flushing, you have a leak.
3. C – The average bathroom faucet flows at a rate of two gallons per minute; by simply turning the tap off, you can save more than 100 gallons of water per person each month
4. B – If your toilet is from 1992 or earlier, you probably have an inefficient model that uses between 3.5 to 7 gallons per flush. New high-efficiency models use less than 1.3 gallons per flush; that’s 60% - 80% less water than their less efficient counterparts.
5. C – Even though 75% of the earth’s surface is covered by water, less than 1% is available for human use. The rest is salt water, locked in inaccessible locations underground or is frozen in polar ice caps and glaciers.
Thanks for playing along with us, but if you’d like to find out more about why water efficiency is important and how you can become more water-efficient, visit www.epa.gov/watersense.
