Browsing: water

With droughts expected over the summer and hose pipe bans almost certain to take hold in some areas, I felt it necessary to explore ways to conserve water in the home and garden.  We begin in the home.  Water saving in the home is surprisingly easy and is primarily about developing better habits, such as fixing a dripping tap or thinking before you turn on the tap or use the shower about whether it’s really necessary.

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The wetter the better?

I recently challenged myself to ‘Go One Better’  – to conduct an examination of my lifestyle and identify simple improvements which I could make, and more importantly stick to, which will make a difference.  I began with a commitment to eliminate at least one regular car journey and replace it by cycling.  Given the title of this post you could be forgiven for thinking that I’m going to attempt a cheerful defence of pedalling in the rain, not so.
With all going well with the cycling it was time to turn my attention to other things.  Once you start to think about ‘going one better ‘the problem is not so much what to tackle, but where to start.  I decided to start by examining my daily routine, working from morning onwards.
To say I’m not a morning person doesn’t even come close.  According to my family I don’t wake up – I defrost.  Putting myself in the microwave isn’t an option (though it’s a tempting proposition for family I suspect) so I tend to thaw out in the shower.  I’d always resented the hammering on the bathroom door and pleas for speed, evidence of their tendency toward exaggeration.  ‘You always take forever’ being conclusive proof of their impatience, as I was never in longer than a couple of minutes.
I’m probably not alone in the belief that showering is guilt free

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Flooding by marilynjane via Flickr

With threats of floods this weekend and many parts of the UK set for a rainy spell, do we really need to save water? My Dad has always argued that saving water when you live in Manchester is a waste of time. Water is everywhere – why are we trying to save it?

Well the answer is more complex than you might think. To one degree my dad is right – we often have more water than we know what to do with. However, the environmental impact of water goes way beyond its use as a raw material.

Consider the cost of actually pumping water around. While some places in the UK have gravity fed systems – large parts of the South East, South West, Midlands and East Anglia use pumps to move water around. More water used, more power required to move the water.

Consider the cost of handling and treating sewage. According the Environment Agency, 10 billion litres of sewage are produced in the UK every day. The treatment plants use energy and require the delivery chemicals, sand and gravel to make the process work. The resulting sludge often gets taken away by the lorry load for landfill, land reclaimation and farm usage. (Of course it could be used as the input to a bio-gas system – but not much sign of that happening in the UK yet!)

Consider meeting our UK obligations under the EU Habitats Directive where the UK committed to reduce the water usage around the Natura 2000 protected sites by an equivalent amount of water as used by 1.5million people. There are 414 sites in the UK where flora and fauna will be endangered if we do not reduce the ground water abstraction. Back in 1992 the targets for 2010 probably looked easy to achieve – now in 2008 – things look a little tougher.

So it may be chucking it down for all of January but there is still a whole host of good green reasons to save water. If you’ve got an old style cistern on your loo, why not take advantage of the special offer on Hippo the Water Saver at Ethical Superstore?