South West Water: Save 5 Litres A Day!

Utility company South West Water has called on its customers all over Devon and Cornwall to do all they can to save five litres of water a day at the moment in a bid to help maintain reservoir levels.

Lisa Gaha, director responsible for water resources with the firm, explained that it has been particularly dry over the last year and, although reservoir levels are still good right now, lots of dry spells have also been seen, the BBC reports.

These dry conditions, coupled with an increase in visitors over the summer months and growing numbers of people choosing to live in the region, mean that increased pressure is now being put on water supplies.

However, as South West Water affirms, if each of its two million customers worked to save five litres of water each day, ten million litres of water would be saved.

This could become of greater importance in the near future, with demand for water expected to increase as climate change drives temperatures up across the region.

Currently, the average customer uses approximately 150 litres of water a day, which suggests that there may well be a lot of opportunity to make savings in a variety of areas.

For example, if people spent a minute less in the shower, they’d successfully save eight litres of water, while turning the tap off a minute earlier could save six litres. For gardening, hose pipes use 1,000 litres of water an hour, so finding alternative methods for keeping plants watered and well fed could help make significant savings.

Other tips to reduce your water footprint include turning the tap off while brushing your teeth, keeping water in the fridge so you don’t have to run the tap, fixing any leaking taps and toilets and having showers instead of baths.

What can businesses do?

As well as all the above tips, there’s a lot that businesses can do to become more water efficient and start operating more sustainably.

Having a water audit carried out across your entire site can be beneficial, identifying weak and vulnerable areas where improvements can be directed. Your premises can also be monitored over time so that any potential problems can be spotted quickly and dealt with before they become difficult – and potentially expensive – to deal with.

Other options include rainwater harvesting, grey water recycling, employee awareness campaigns and automated meter reading. This can help you spot spikes in usage, which could be an indication that there’s an issue along the pipe network somewhere.

If you’d like to find out more, get in touch with SwitchWaterSupplier.com today to see how we can help reduce your water usage and consumption today… and help you save money at the same time.