If you are like me you have spent years letting the water run full blast while brushing your teeth with little regard to how much water was being wasted during that 2 minutes of brushing in the morning and at night.

I know it’s horrible but I never really thought about it until a few years ago.

And of course it makes sense that a person will save water if they don’t let it run while brushing their teeth but do you know how much water is saved?

At my house, running the water in the bathroom sink for the 2 minutes it takes me to brush my teeth uses about 2 1/2 gallons of water (yes, I measured it). When I have the water on only while I wet my toothbrush and while I rinse uses about 16 ounces of water.

That means, at my house, I can save over 4 1/2 gallons of water a day just by turning the water off while I brush my teeth. Over the course of a year, that’s 1,642.5 gallons of water saved.