The UK Government is launching a new campaign urging Britons to stop wasting water and save 20 litres a day. The average UK household uses over 100,000 litres of water a year, the equivalent of 150 litres per person per day - one of the highest usage figures in Europe.
Despite the UK's reputation for frequent rainfall and being surrounded by water, many parts of the country - particularly in the densely populated south east - actually have less water available per head than many European countries, including Italy, Greece and France.
The water-saving campaign recommends turning off the tap whiling cleaning your teeth, reducing shower times by as little as a minute, using a bowl to wash up rather than a running tap and watering the garden with a watering can instead of a hosepipe. Many people now collect rainwater to use on their garden.Why not collect your shower water and use it to flush the loo? Or use washing up water to water the garden, for many houses this can be done by redirecting a drain.
The Government have yet to encourage anyone to do anything that I can see. Other countries have toilets that have a low flush/high flush option, I have only seen them here in a few eco houses.
So whose fault is it that only around 13% of households have invested in simple measures like a water-saving toilet cistern; just 3% use aerated water-efficient showerheads.
The Defra initiative, which is part of the Government's Act on CO2 campaign, will be fronted by TV presented Kate Humble.
Some more water saving sites:
actonco2 ecocamel shower head, waterwise , reducereuserecycle, plumb world.
I have blogged before about getting a free , Eaga Showersmart water saving device.
5 years ago
4 comments:
We had a new bathroom installed this summer, the loo came with dual flush as standard. I don't think the plumber showed us any loos with a single flush.
It seems to be bloody difficult to set up greywater flushing though, lots of filtration and things which just don't bolt onto our old house well.
Cheers Ailbhe, thats a step forward. It doesn't address the 99% of households without dual flush.
I was encouraged to think that if one wants a new loo for non-eco reasons one accidentally gets a slightly ecologically better one anyway. People who want dual flush will already get one.
Funny I ran across your article today of all times. My wife has been on me about using so much water in our yard. I just found out about Pennington's Smart Seed (www.smartseed.com). Has anyone else tried this yet? It's suppose to take less water, but maintain a green look. I'm willing to try it if someone could shed some more insight. Thanks!
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