38% of our water goes down the toilet!
Monday, February 8th, 2010I read this stat today. And believe it or not we are now building huge desalination plants so that we can burn fossil fuels in order to desalinate more water to go down the toilet!
And when you save water you also save energy, because water requires enormous amounts of energy to pump around the country and to dispose of.
In Hong Kong at least part of the city toilets are on a separate, unfiltered water supply.
Why can’t we use treated grey-water for toilet flushing? It is legal in some places but not others.
There are some effective treatment systems for the grey water, because stored grey water can build up a high bacterial content.
Dual flush toilet cisterns have been around for many years but are still not universal.
Some places use stored rainwater to run the toilets and washing machine.
Coming from Adelaide, at the bottom end of the Murray, I treasure rainwater for drinking and bathing as Murray water causes my skin to get bad excema.
Clearly there needs to be clean gutters and sealed tanks that have the bottom 15 cms or so pumped out each year but there are increasing numbers of effective gutting solutions available now. And some industrial areas may be unsuitable for rainwater collection for drinking.
I have twice lived in places with no water supply other than collected rain water and that is by far my favourite water resource.
Save Money with Simple and Effective Management SystemsJean Cannon is an award winning consultant and trainer helping people and businesses around the world who want to save money by implementing simple and effective management systems. Sign up to discover how YOU can save money with sensible energy management and ISO 14001.
