Beware of Overwatering Your Lawn.

Photo courtesy of spencer k. s. at Flickr.com.

All told, more than a third of our country’s water usage goes toward watering our grass: the average acre of lawn requires about 24,000 gallons of water to remain green and healthy year-round. What’s more, most Americans overwater by somewhere around 5,000-10,000 gallons per acre a year, to the tune of 600-700 million gallons annually. Sure, all that water eventually gets reused, but only after filtering through an ecosystem polluted with about 25,000 tons of chemical pesticides and fertilizers a year. There are better uses for our water, so cut back on the watering, and if you can afford it, install automatic water-saving devices to help.

Photo courtesy of Rach and Ade at Flickr.com.