Every so often we read well-meaning articles about water conservation with complicated directions about how to recycle the shower water to the garden or the washing machine effluvia to clean the car. All very high-minded but not exactly practical if you have all the piping in your house or apartment already in place. In another article in this magazine, Ilan Shachar tells us that a plumber can do the job of installing the pipes needed to divert this used water (page….) but I'm sure many readers will feel it's too much of an investment in money and energy and opt not to do it.

There must be much simpler ideas for saving water and I'm sure our readers have many. For example, every Saturday night, after the water in the Shabbat kettle has cooled I water my plants with it. There are always gallons left over and it feels wrong just to pour it down the sink.

I have also discovered that it's very easy to have a thorough shower using very little water. There is no need to let the water flow over you the whole time you are showering. When you go in the shower you turn on the water and wet yourself all over. Then you turn it off, soap, scrub, sponge, loofah, whatever else you do, then turn it on just to rinse off all the lather. I'm sure I don't use more than two liters of water for the whole thing and I promise, I'm clean.

So let's have your ideas. Mine seems so simple but I only realized that I could do it very recently. There must be many other very obvious water-saving tricks we just haven't thought of.

Send your suggestions to esramag@esra.org.il and if they're original and feasible we will publish them in the next magazine.