Hosepipe Ban

Apparently this is “Water at work week” something I wasn’t aware of until reading it on the Envirowise website this morning. Anyway, the punchline to their week is that businesses are wasting 310 million litres of water every working day, whilst millions of us endure a hosepipe ban.

They say office workers use as much as 35 litres per day each – 86% from flushing the toilet and suggest businesses stick a litre bottle of water in toilet cisterns to save a fifth of the water wasted every day. They also suggest other ways businesses can save water on their website.

The Environment Agency tells us that the drought conditions in the Uk are adversely affecting the environment. Dead ducks and fish, toxic algal blooms and rivers being reduced to trickles are all becoming a common sight this summer as the drought takes its toll.

Reports this weekend claim that Rod Stewart has a very lush and green football pitch at his mansion in Essex – despite the area being under a hosepipe ban and drought conditions.

Woody Allen received a rap on the knuckles from Southern Water whilst filming scenes for his new film on Brighton beach. The currently untitled film needed a heavy downpour on the beach and Woody’s crew duly obliged with their shower-making equipment – hooked up to the nearest tap.

Taken by Tony Parkin from London, here’s a picture of a water main releasing some pressure next to Vauxhall tube station.

I’ve just been reading that 20% of clean water that enters your house goes down the toilet. Then I read this figure could in fact be up to 50%. Wow! That’s a lot of precious water going to waste. So what can we do about it?

Yesterday Ofwat published leakage data covering the year 2005/06. They state that leakage in England and Wales fell by 20 million litres per day during that period. “Most of the 22 companies met or performed better than the target set for 2005-06 by the water industry regulator.” they said.
However, four companies failed miserably to meet their targets, with (surprise surprise) Thames Water and Severn Trent Water being singled out as the poorest performers. United Utilites and Southern Water also joined them in the high wasters category.

Taken by David Bench in Birmingham, in the grounds of St. Phillips Cathedral.

I don’t suppose I need to tell you it’s hot? Several temperature records are set to be broken any time soon and apparently there’s more to come. As the school holidays are just around the corner I wondered what sort of water based ideas for cooling off people were coming up with. Obviously observing the hosepipe ban at the same time!

I don’t like to complain about the lovely weather we’re having at the moment but it’s obviously not going to help lift hosepipe bans or stop impending drought orders. The whole problem continues to get massive press coverage and this website is getting lots of visitors. As a result I’m getting some interesting emails!

The Consumer Council for Water says that during the last financial year they received 12359 complaints about water companies which was an increase of 11% on the previous year.

Following on from a post I did earlier this week about Ofwat and Thames Water, the water regulator has in my opinion come up with a much better solution than fining them – especially as everyone guessed the fine would be a paltry £10 million.