Water Use Reduction & Efficiency

Overview

Using water-saving techniques can save money and divert less freshwater from rivers, bays, and estuaries, which helps keep the environment healthy. It can also reduce water and wastewater treatment costs and the amount of energy used to treat, pump, and heat water. This lowers energy demand, which helps prevent air pollution. 

It's not just the dry western areas of the country that need to be concerned with water efficiency. As our population continues to grow, demands on precious water resources increase. There are many opportunities to use household water more efficiently without reducing services. Homes with high-efficiency plumbing fixtures and appliances save about 30 percent of indoor water use and yield substantial savings on water, sewer, and energy bills.

In Norcross, government facilities are in the process of retrofitting all plumbing fixtures to ultra-high-efficiency. To protect water quality, new developments in the city are required to install manhole covers with “No Dumping” signage on all stormwater drains. Finally, the community garden at Discovery Garden Park hosts a large rain barrel that collects rainwater from the Welcome Center building. Gardeners are encouraged to use the rainwater for their designated plots before using the spouts connected to the Gwinnett County water system.

The City of Norcross is certified under the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) Green Communities program and is one of only several Platinum-level Green Communities in metro Atlanta. Below, see how Norcross is doing on completing ARC Green Communities measures around water use reduction and efficiency: