Outdoors

Car Washing

Everyone likes having a nice clean car. Did you know that taking your car to a commercial car wash uses less water and helps to protect our rivers and lakes?

• Washing a car in your driveway allows the detergent and chemicals, not to mention the oil and grease, to drain onto the road and into our storm water systems, eventually finding their way untreated into our rivers and lakes.
• Commercial car washes use less water than using a garden hose, bucket and sponge in your driveway; they also filter the water before discharging to the sanitary sewer.

Pools

Swimming pools are a great way to stay cool and enjoy those hot summer days. Saving water in your swimming pool is easy.

• Invest in a pool cover as it can reduce evaporation by 30 to 50 per cent.
• Leave some space at the top when you fill your pool, this will reduce water lost from splashing.
• Inspect for leaks regularly and fix right away.
• Make sure you follow your local Summer Water Conservation By-law when topping up a pool. During a drought or when outdoor water use restrictions are in place, hold off on topping up the pool until the restriction has been lifted. Click here for information on your local by-law.

Driveways

Cleaning your driveway with the hose uses a tremendous amount of high quality drinking water. A garden hose flows on average 35 litres (10 gallons) per minute; spending 10 minutes cleaning a driveway with the garden hose will use 350 litres of drinking water. That's more than the average person in York Region uses per day for all other household activities combined!

Sweep dirty driveways instead of using the hose.