Lincoln businesses are complying with water restrictions and how you can too

Water.

We use it to drink, wash our hands, and to cook.

Sunday night Mayor Chris Beutler put mandatory water restrictions into place forcing people and businesses to reduce their usage.

Businesses are being asked to reduce their use by 25% and many are making adjustments to comply with the restrictions.

“We are conserving ice throughout the store so we’re not making ice with water. Our displays that we would normally have ice in say for the seafood department we’re just not setting those things right now,” Steve Parker, a store manager at Hy-Vee on North 27th and Superior, said.

At Hy-Vee stores across Lincoln seafood display cases will remain empty until the water restrictions are lifted.

The products will still be available, they just won’t be out for customers to see so the store isn’t wasting ice.

Both Hy-Vee and Lincoln Public Schools have changed how they’re serving food.

“We now will only be using disposable dishes for breakfast and lunch in our cafeteria’s. We are not going to wash our buses. We are going to be asking our students and staff to be conserving as much as possible throughout the day,” Superintendent Steve Joel said.

Using disposable items will save thousands of gallons of water a day that would normally be used to wash dishes and silverware.

Janitors for the schools are also switching cleaning products so they use less water while keeping schools clean.

Lincoln Fire and Rescue and Lincoln Police have stopped washing their cruisers or engines and Zipline Brewing is switching to plastic cups and reducing the size of new brews to save water.

So how can you help conserve water?

Take shorter showers, hold off  on doing a lot of laundry, don’t wash your dishes, drink bottled water instead of continually filling from the tap, and minimize the number of times you flush your toilets.