Water Campaign

I'm sure that most of you are very aware of your water consumption but I hope that these ideas may spark a few of your own - in which case, why not write in and tell us?

Don't water your garden when the sun is shining brightly as you will lose a lot of the water to evaporation and damage the plants as well. It is best to water once the sun is low in the sky.

Grass does not need to be watered as it will recover from its brownness once it rains. Install a water butt - you can collect a lot of water from your roof to water your plants in the summer.

If you need to run the hot tap to get hot water, save the water in a watering can or a series of bottles and use it to water garden or household plants.

If your toilet is not dual flush, fill a plastic bottle with water and put it in the cistern to reduce the quantity of water used per flush. Alternatively, you can contact Severn Trent Water and they will supply you with a Hippo bag. The average British toilet uses 9 litres per flush.

An easy one but we all do it from time to time - don't leave the tap running whilst you brush your teeth and wash your hands in a sink with the plug in, not under a running tap. The same goes for washing dishes - fill the sink or a bowl, don't run the tap. A dripping tap wastes 35 litres per day so get them mended.

Shower rather than bath, when at all possible. An average shower takes 25 litres whilst a bath takes 85 litres. Don't use a hosepipe to wash your car - buckets of water are just as effective (wash it less or leave it dusty! -Ed)

I am presently writing Birmingham FOE's response to the Environment Agency's West Midlands-Tame Local Environment Agency Plan. This covers not only water issues but also waste disposal and air pollution. While it's in my mind I thought that now might be a good time to mention the Bag it and Bin it campaign.

This national campaign aims to raise people's awareness of the fact that a toilet is not a dustbin. I hope that none of our readers would put items such as disposable nappies, women's sanitary protection, dental floss or cotton buds down the toilet instead of in the bin.

One of the problems is that our sewer system is constructed to overflow above a certain capacity and it generally does so- straight into the nearest river, where the above items end up strewn on the river banks. Another reason is that it makes the sewers even more unpleasant for water company workers than they are already and, if you really need a third reason, they can cause problems at the sewage works if they get into the processes. The One Earth Shop here at the Warehouse sells paper bags for disposal of items, so why not buy some?

I hope you all have a pleasant summer and I look forward to reporting back on some of my work later in the year.

Laura Burrows