How To Conserve Water This Summer

Australia and the world face many issues relating to waste. This encompasses food and water wastage, as well as many other precious resources.

Food waste can be avoided by carefully planning portions, using leftovers and taking them for lunch the next day in reusable sandwich wraps, but what about water waste?

Here are some ways that you can conserve water, even in the hot summer season.

How Australians use water

Some states like South Australia, notorious for its dry spells, can use around three quarters of its water on irrigation, with the rest going to urban and industrial use.

While everyone’s water usage is different, in South Australia 40 per cent of household water use goes towards the garden and the outdoors, 20 per cent to the bath and shower, 16 per cent to the laundry, 11 per cent to the kitchen and 2 per cent for other functions.

Obviously, if you live in an inner-city apartment, it’s not likely you will spend much, if anything, on water for the garden and outdoors, so it’s a good idea to create a mental checklist of where you think you use water the most.
For those with kids regularly getting muddy on the sports field it might be the laundry, while a household full of teenagers who love to spend hours in the bathroom might find the shower is the culprit.

Once you’ve identified areas where you use a lot of water, you can find ways to cut back. Set a time limit for the lengths of household showers, collect drop-off shower water for use in the garden and refrain from letting the kitchen tap run or drip.

Engage the whole family in these water saving activities and you’ll quickly notice your overall bill decrease. Awareness is one of the biggest steps you can take to change your habits and those of the people around you – and nobody really wants to waste water! So, once they know what to change, it shouldn’t be too much of a battle to conserve water from there.