Does anyone else here think about ways to conserve water?
You can get rain barrels, but whenever I buy a house, I've thought of going a step further. I'd get one of those big industrial plastic tanks (not a used one that's had something toxic in it, but a new one) that can hold about a thousand gallons or so, and route the drainpipes from the roof into it. If it's too ugly for the neighbors, I'd put it inside a shed. (In that case, no deed-restricted communities for me.) It would collect the rainwater that hits the roof, to be used for watering the lawn, washing out containers for recycling, flushing the toilet, etc.
You may have heard that phrase "If it's yellow, let it mellow," meaning if you've just pissed, leave it. I don't fully agree with that. For one thing, little droplets of whatever's in there splatter out when you piss, and I don't want anyone else's piss getting on me. Here's an idea I found on a website about Japanese toilets: Re-use the water that runs in the sink, so (this would probably work better with a urinal than a full-blown crapper) instead of flushing it with fresh water, the water you've just washed your hands with does double duty, by going into a pipe leading to the urinal and then passing through there before going to the sewer.
I could go on and on about more stuff, like for instance gathering the condensate from all the air conditioners and dehumidifiers in use and pumping it to the rain tank so it, too, can be used. But I think you get the idea.
Anyone else here ever had ideas like that, or implemented anything like that just for an excuse to design and build stuff?