Little things add up

Last week in the "opinion" page of the Daily Herald I read that individuals can make a more immediate impact on the environment than corporations. So I thought I would put my 2 cents in.

My wife and I are empty nesters and we do our dishes daily rather than put them in the dishwasher for days at a time and pulling a pot or pan out to wash separately when needed for cooking. We used to run the water until it started getting hot then added soap for the dishes to soak. It dawned on me that we were wasting all that water waiting for it to get hot. We also have a Keurig coffee maker that we filled in the morning.

I started filling up the reservoir of the Keurig while waiting for the water to get warm. Our Keurig holds 30 to 40 ounces of water (I'll say 32 ounces-1quart). In effect we are saving 1 quart a day from what we used to. If 100,000 people would do the same, it would save 25,000 gallons. 1 million people would save 250,000 gallons.

We can all think of doing little things in our life to help the environment.

Fred Zajler

Palatine