Reducing Water Wastage in the UK

With all the rain we’ve had in the last month, now is the time to buy a water butt. Used correctly and with waterwise gardening, a water butt will provide all the water you need to keep your garden alive throughout the long hot summer months. To help you Waterwise has produced a handy water butts guide available on our website – www.waterwise.org.uk

Even without a hosepipe ban it doesn’t make sense to be using high quality treated drinking water on your garden. Waterwise encourages everybody to practice waterwise gardening. This means using rainwater from a water butt on your plants, delivering it with a watering can or drip irrigation system and mulching your soil. This way you can have a beautiful, living garden which uses a very small amount of water.

You’ll also reduce your carbon footprint as each household has half a tonne of water delivered to their door every day. The energy costs associated with treating and pumping this water are huge.

If every household in the UK got a standard water butt this would save about 30,000 million litres of water each summer – that’s enough to fill Bewl Water reservoir! (This was the one that was running on empty all last summer 2006).

‘With climate change, population growth and increased use of water, the future of our water supply in the UK is at risk if we do not start to think about the way we are using this precious resource,’ says Jacob Tompkins, Director of Waterwise. ‘Outdoor water use accounts for around 7% of the total water use, but in the summer this can rise to over 50% of peak demand. However, this is one of the easiest areas to save water as we don’t need to waste valuable tapwater on our plants. Plus, plants actually prefer rainwater – it is better for them!’

Other methods of waterwise gardening include:

• Try not to use a sprinkler. Sprinklers can use as much as 1,000 litres of water per hour - more than a family of four can use in a whole day. If you must use a sprinkler, water early in the morning or late in the evening when evaporation rates are lowest. In addition turn it off when it is not being used.

• Use a trigger nozzle on your hosepipe to halve the water used and direct the water flow to the roots of your plants. Alternatively by using a watering can you can significantly reduce the amount of water wasted.

• Use mulch and bark in your garden to reduce evaporation by up to 75%

• Think about mixing some drought resistant bedding and perennial plants to your garden to add diversity.

• If you are washing your patio furniture or bikes, do it on the lawn so the water gets recycled into the environment.

• Remember its ok to let your lawn go brown this summer. Brown lawns are eco-friendly and it will recover immediately after rainfall. Even the Queen had a brown lawn last summer.

• Use a bucket and sponge to wash your car. Just 30 minutes with a hosepipe will waste hundreds of litres. And, using a bucket will give your car a much more precise wash. If you must use a hosepipe, attach a trigger nozzle.

• If you are laying lawns or newly laid turf, please refer to the attached leaflet produced in conjunction with Waterwise, CCWater and the Turf Growers Association.

For more water saving tips visit www.waterwise.org.uk

CCWater are also asking consumers to think about how they use tap water in their gardens this bank holiday – visit www.ccwater.org.uk for more information.

Notes to Editors

1. Based on the following assumptions:
Standard water butt = 200 litres 25 million households in the UK Water butts save 5,000,000,000 litres annually 31,000,000,000 Bewl Water reservoir capacity Water butt fills 5 or 6 times a summer.

2. Waterwise is an independent, not for profit, non-governmental organisation focused on decreasing water consumption in the UK by 2010 and building the evidence base for large scale water efficiency. We are the leading authority on water efficiency in the UK. We sit on the UK Environment Minister’s Water Saving Group alongside the water industry and regulators.

3. Our aim is to reverse the upward trend in how much water we all use at home and at work by 2010.

4. We work together with key partners in the water companies, governments (UK, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and local governments), manufacturers, retailers, NGOs, environmentalists, regulators, agriculture, business, domestic consumers and the media.

5. For more information please visit www.waterwise.org.uk

6. The Consumer Council for Water (CCWater) represents consumers in England and Wales. Consumers can contact CCWater on a national number, 0845 039 2837.

Contacts:

Chris Philpot
Media and Campaigns Manager, Waterwise
020 7957 4615
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1 Queen Anne’s Gate, London, SW1H 9BT

Jacob Tompkins
Director, Waterwise
07793 709567
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1 Queen Anne’s Gate, London, SW1H 9BT