Water Usage and Waste

Water waste is something that we see happening in our everyday lives. Many people waste water without even thinking about it. Water is a renewable resource, but since humans have started polluting rivers, oceans, lakes and streams, for how long will we want to reuse that water? All living things need clean water to survive, and with the increasing global population, there will be an even larger need for more clean water.

Many people in poor, dry countries around the world do not have clean, safe water to drink. It is hard to imagine that situation getting any worse, bu what if the rest of the world starts to run out of clean, safe drinking water?

The blue "water glass" chart above, showing residential water use, demonstrates that about only 47% of our total outdoor usage of water is effective, leaving the other 23% of the water used to be wasted. This is enough water to cover almost the entirety of the indoor water use in an average household. A few possible solutions to this problem might be less frequent watering and not watering during the hottest hours of the day.

As you can see from the pie chart at the top of the page, the largest percentage of indoor water usage is caused by toilets. Traditionally, toilets have used about 13 litres per flush. Low-flow toilets, however, use 6 litres or less per flush.

Everyone needs to take showers and wash their clothes, but these activities use large amounts of water as well. It is estimated, for example, that an average of about 2.5 gallons of water is used per minute in a shower. Low-flow shower heads that can be used to control the amount of water wasted, and high efficiency washing machines use far less water than traditional machines.

In spite of many newspaper articles and tv documentaries, many people are still not aware of these facts. It is my hope that Water Works can help educate people about water usage and water waste!