5 simple ways to optimize your water footprint today.
In my home country, Belgium, a new period of serious drought is now spanning weeks. Ground water levels have not been so low at this time of the year since many years. Close by, the Rhine river reached a low point already in April. The phenomenon of seasonal water stress is now coming back year after year.
The 1%yearly reduction in freshwater abstraction in Europe since 2000 is not enough to reduce the risks of water shortage in the future. Globally by 2030 the UN expects a 40% gap in water supply vs. demand based on current setup assuming no efficiency gains. Besides increasing production of freshwater, ideally in a sustainable way, accelerated efficiency gains need to be achieved across residential, commercial & agricultural sectors.
It is relatively easy to contribute yourself to reduce the expected 40% gap in water by 2030 - causing water scarcity. The simple measures below can easily reduce your water footprint beyond 20.000 l per person per year.
1. Check flow rates of shower heads and basin mixers and safe up to 50%
Water efficiency and performance of showers and basin mixers produced today is much better than 20 years ago, driven by technological progress and new norms originating from water-scarce area’s like California. You can check the performance easily using a timer on your smartphone and a bucket.
Basin mixers used to consume 12 l/min or more in fully open position whereas today, 5,8 litre per minute is the standard. It’s super easy to reduce the flowrate by replacing the mousseur/flow straightener with one that has a lower flow rate – you’ll find these online or at sanitary specialists costing between 5 and 15 euro per piece. The impact? You’ll reduce up to 1.500 l water/€ 5 per person per year!
· Showers used to consume easily 20 l/min water, where these days the optimum – depending on the type of shower– is somewhere between 8 and 15 litre per minute. To optimize it can be a bit more complicated and/or costly. It depends. Sometimes you will be able to install a small plastic flow restrictor (look for flow restrictor shower online), or you replace your shower head or hand shower in case a flow restrictor does not fit. With this simple adjustment you’ll save up to 9.000 l water/€ 30 per person per year – not considering the heating of the water!
2. Reuse water at the kitchen sink for your garden : 5 litres/day
A lot of area’s suffer from drought in summer, a consequence of climate change and population growth. In the kitchen you’re often rinsing something or cooking without adding contaminants to the water. Just catch this water in a bucket and fill a watering can with it then spray it in the garden. A small daily change of habit will help your plants grow better. You’re easily reusing 1.500 litre water for your garden, reducing the need to spray using single use drinking water.
3. Check the flushing performance and use small flush consistently
Research has shown that Belgians do not use the small flush in 20% of the times when this is the best fit option. Using the small flush correctly all the time saves around 1.000 liter per year per/€ 5 person for the average Belgian. When you want to optimize further, especially if your toilet is older than 10 years, check the flushing mechanism of your toilet, adjust or replace it - you can always ask your plumber for a review. Optimisation from the old 9/4,5 l toilets to 6/3 l toilets will drive down water consumption per person up to 4.000 l per year!
4. Check for leaks and fix – reduce up to 13% of the water bill
Studies in US and experience of leak experts have shown that leaks are frequent and that leaks are responsible of up to 13% of residential water use. Leaking toilets, faucets & showers are easy to spot and often easy to fix if you take the time.
Most frequent leaks, and often not easy to notice are running toilets. A running toilet can leak anything from a litre to hundreds of litres per day. These leaks can become quite costly ranging from € 5 to € 100 per month.
A faucet with a drop leakage of 1 drip per second, leaks around 1.200 litre per month, costing € 3 to € 10 per month depending on how much you pay for drinking water.
5. Eat vegetarian once a week
We have not been tackling the water footprint excluding consumption yet. Surprisingly enough this is where you can have most impact, although indirect. One example is reducing your water footprint for food. Food requires irrigation, washing/cleaning, transport, … to finally land on your plate. All these activities require water, and there is a massive difference in impact on water used between a carnivore and a vegetarian diet:
Eat one day vegetarian each week, and you will reduce your average water footprint by 500 litre water per day per person.
