Save Water and Energy This Thanksgiving!

The preparation and aftermath of a holiday meal can be much more water and energy intensive than your average daily meal. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, Impress your friends and family with your water and energy efficient practices around the kitchen.

Check out these few simple tips form the US EPA on how you can save water and energy in the kitchen this holiday season. If we all do our part in conserving even just a little, we can, as a whole, conserve an enormous amount.

Have a Water Efficient Thanksgiving!

Preparing for and cleaning up after a holiday meal can use much more water than an everyday meal. Running your tap continuously while preparing food or washing dishes wastes water and can use more than 2 gallons of water every minute your tap is running. That's a lot when you're cooking a big meal for extended family members and friends!

A few simple and easy steps can help save water and energy. If you own a dishwasher, scrape dirty dishes rather than pre-rinsing them before placing them in the dishwasher. If you don’t have a dishwasher, fill the sink with a few gallons of wash water, clean your dishes and put them aside. Then, rinse them all together at the end. Either of these simple practices could save 10 gallons. If every household reduced 10 gallons on Thanksgiving Day alone, it would save more than 1 billion gallons of water. That's enough for 1 million households with dishwashers to wash their dishes for a year. For more information saving tips visit http://www.epa.gov/watersense/.

Check out River Network's Water-Energy Toolkit to learn exactly how much energy and carbon emissions are associated with the use of water around your home and business, and how you can save water, energy and money by making a few simple adjustments.

Also, check out the US EPA's water efficiency tips for consumers page to learn how to become more water efficient and save money on utility bills. To help put a visual on how to put water and energy efficiency tips to work, watch this series of videos on home water conservation.

While you gather with your friends and family around the piano singing songs and drinking eggnog and hot buttered rum this holiday season, don't forget about everybody's favorite water conservation sing-a-long, The Drip Drop Queen!