Water

Global Water
Water accounts for over half of the human body weight, covers 7/10ths of the planet, fills our rivers and lakes. We drink it, swim in it, sail upon it and draw power from it…Water is life.

There is talk of a global water crisis and indeed, in many countries clean, fresh water is scarce. However, it is now acknowledged by global authorities that “…the scarcity at the heart of the global water crisis is rooted in power, poverty and inequality, not in physical availability.”
(2006 United Nations Human Development Report).

The mismanagement of water is not restricted to the developing world - 85% of the world’s fresh water is consumed by 12% of the population and those 12% reside in developed countries.

People in rich countries use on average 10 times more water than those in poor countries and an overwhelming proportion of that water is simply wasted.

Water in the UK

We are now approaching a situation where countries that never had to consider water shortages are facing restricted (and worse in the future) alongside rapidly rising costs.

The world cannot increase its supply of fresh water, what we can do is change the way we use it.

In the UK the average person currently uses about 150 litres per day. This consumption has been rising by about 1% a year since 1930 and at current trends this is not sustainable. Especially when you take into account that the UK has less available water per capita than most European cities, that London has less water available than Istanbul and South East England less than Sudan.

  • Toilets account for 30% of domestic water use. The average household flushes 5,000 times per year.
  • There are 45 million toilets in the UK using approximately 2 billion litres of fresh water each day.
  • With over 7 million single flush toilets using as much as 13 litres per flush, the potential for water and money savings with ecoBETA is enourmous.

The potential for water and money savings with ecoBETA is enourmous.

 
Global Wateruse
Source: FN (WWAP)


Source: FN (WWAP), UNEP


UK Water usage
Source: Waterwise