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/

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