Beating one commitment - Water. 25% in 2010
Just over a year ago, I started this occasional blog when I realised that sometimes even the smallest tangible action is the easiest way to have a real conversation with people on the topic of climate change, sustainability and the environment.
We decided that our next action (we had already used the Government's initiative to insulate our home earlier last year) would be to install a 3000 Litre water tank and connect it to the Washing Machine and Toilets. The objective was to reduce our overall usage of water by at least 10%.
I had a suspicion that, considering we have a very young family, we might exceed that however. The washing machine, efficient as it already is, runs three or four times a day two to three days a week. The Garden is thirsty, and the small 1000 Litre tank we already had was often empty.
In Spring Quarter in 2009, we used on average 417 Litres of water a day in our household. That's a total of around 38,750 Litres of Water a quarter or something like 150,000 Litres a year - allowing for some times of the year being less thirsty than others.
When I got our last Sydney water bill in September, our numbers were already looking good, but as you well know Winter is a less thirsty time due to less watering required in the garden.
Today however, we got the Spring Bill. And it matches almost exactly the Winter Usage. In the last 3 months we've used an average of 290 Litres of water a day.
Quarterly Usage Targets
That's a 30% cut Year on Year. And that's with the 3000 Litre tank we installed actually being empty reasonably regularly throughout the year. Even though we've had a fair bit of
rain in the past 6-8 weeks, the year to then often went too long without enough, or the proper type of rain falling on the roof. (When you have a first flush diverter, the downpipe has to have reasonable flow so light drizzle never reaches the tank.)
With the supposed Wet Summer continuing, we should then expect the tank to have water in it almost constantly for the next few months. And with that the next quarter should show even better results than to date.
Annual Usage and Rainfall
Next: Comparing the Investment with the NBN
