What is the 40 Gallon Challenge?

The 40 Gallon Challenge is a call for residents and businesses to reduce our region's water use on average by 40 gallons per person, per day. The challenge began in 2011 as a voluntary campaign to increase water conservation.

How does it work?

The 40 Gallon Challenge encourages people to save a minimum of 40 gallons a day by adopting new water-saving techniques. The pledge card outlines water-saving practices and the daily water-savings to expect. You can use the pledge to review the water-saving practices that you or your family currently puts to use. By pledging new practices, you will see the total daily savings expected for your household.

The 40 Gallon Challenge also provides maps and charts to see pledge activities in your state and across the United States.

Why should I conserve water?

Drought conditions, population growth and increasing water demands has put added stress on the water supply. By conserving water, these water demands and the demand for energy-intensive systems that obtain, treat, and distribute water are both decreased.

Why should I pledge to save at least 40 gallons?

Reducing water usage at home not only saves this precious resource, it also helps homeowners keep more money in their wallets. Saving a minimum of 40 gallons a day for 30 days adds up to more than 1,000 gallons per month. This is an easy way to document the amount of water saved since most water providers bill in thousand-gallon increments. In other words, you should see real savings on your water bill if you follow through with your pledge and put to use the recommended water-saving practices.

What if I am already using some of these water-saving practices?

First, thank you for conserving water! If you already use some of these practices, do not choose them in your pledge. Since you already implement a water-saving technique you already benefit from this particular task. For instance, if you are turning off the water when you brush your teeth, then you are already saving up to 8 gallons a day. Including this on your pledge would not truly give you water savings that you can see on your future utility bills.

What can I learn from the 40 Gallon Challenge maps and charts?

The 40 Gallon Challenge maps are a quick way to assess participation of each state and county in the challenge. States and counties are highlighted based on how many gallons their citizens have pledged .The 40 Gallon Challenge charts show the most popular practices being pledged, the pledged practices that are saving the most water daily, and counties that are pledging the most daily savings.

This project has been funded by the Southern Region Water Program and coordinated by the Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture and the Southern Region Drinking Water and Rural-Urban Interface Education Program Team.