Hey, it’s Blog Action Day, the day bloggers who care about the environment are supposed to blog about it. Hope you didn’t find out too late (thanks, BoingBoing!)

Since just saying that it’s Blog Action Day doesn’t really contribute much (especially since most people won’t read this today), here are some thoughts that might actually help you reduce your water usage.

This is something of a lifehack, so forgive me if it’s a bit mundane and/or obvious.

When I’m washing dishes (which I do - I promised Amy I would before we got married), I try to make the water I use go as far as possible. Here’s how I do that. In defiance of the fact that there is a detergent called Cascade, I’m calling this the Cascade Method, since the idea is to get the water to cascade from one dish to another as much as possible. It has nothing to do with the detergent. Skip to the last step if you hate long lists.

• Put the biggest, dirtiest dishes in the sink first
• Open the dishwasher in preparation for loading and pick up the scrubber
• Turn on the water and quickly rinse any dishes that need it, using the scrubber to knock off the big food particles that will cause problems in the dishwasher (but don’t over-rinse!)
• Load the dishwasher, turning off the water as quickly as possible and with as little rinsing as necessary
  
• Once some big dishes are full of water, you can turn off the water and immerse smaller dishes in them for scrubbing
• If a big dish like a chili pot is getting the other dishes dirtier, scrub it a bit, dump it out, and continue
• After the dishwasher-able dishes are loaded, start washing the smaller items
• As you rinse each item, let the soapy water fill up another, as yet unwashed dish

That’s it. A stroke of genius it’s not, but hopefully it will save some water - and soap too - next time you’re doing dishes. Which if you’re a guy should be soon. Because if you’re single, chances are you haven’t done dishes in a while. And if you’re not single, your woman will appreciate it when you do the dishes.