Save water… Save money

Saving water and being water efficient is rapidly becoming as important and necessary to daily life as recycling. Just as consumers are realising that there isn't an endless supply of land to fill with waste, so the realisation that there isn't an abundant supply of water and therefore the need to be more water efficient is dawning too.

We've all grown up taking water for granted. Turn on the tap, flush the toilet, take a bath, run the dishwasher, switch on the washing machine. We use water without really thinking about it. Until now. Worldwide everyone needs to save water and in the process, save money.

In the UK we don't have as much water as you may think. Some parts of the country, particularly in the South, receive less rainfall per person than Sudan in Africa. We actually have less water per person than people in France or Spain. But people in the UK use one third more water than people in Europe. Which is why water efficiency is more important than ever.

Only 3% of water on Earth is fresh and only 10% of that is available for humans to use. The rest is frozen in glaciers and polar ice caps or is very deep down in the Earth. With these figures anyone can see how vital saving water is.

In some countries in the world water is very precious because there's very little of it around. Droughts, where there is no rain for several months at a time, are becoming more common. This means there is much less water available for drinking, washing, feeding cattle and growing crops. In some places people die because of the lack of water.

In the UK, water supplies are topped up by rain in winter. In the summer, there's less rain so we use more water from our taps for watering the garden or washing the car. And with more people living in the UK as our population grows, it is likely that in the future we will have to try harder to use less water and make water efficiency top of our agenda. For example, in the past, the water companies have put bans on people using their hosepipes so that water can be saved during dry summers.

We don't just use water by drinking it, cooking with it and washing in it. Water is used to make everything around you. It's used to make your clothes, the car or bus you travel in, even the bed you sleep on. When water is this intricately woven into our lives it's obvious that being more water efficient is vital.

Did you know?

• More than 1,000 litres of water is needed to produce 1kg of wheat (used to make bread and pasta)
• Around 3,000 litres of water is needed to produce 1kg of rice
• 16,000 litres of water is needed to produce 1kg of beef (cows need feeding and watering too!)

It's important we all become more water efficient. That doesn't mean stopping drinking or washing or brushing our teeth. It means being more aware of times when we may be wasting water, instead of saving water.

How to save water:
Using water at home doesn't usually just mean turning on the tap, a lot of the water we use needs to be heated – using energy and costing you money. Although it can feel like it rains a lot of the time, the UK has less available water per person than almost any other EU country.
Here are a few simple ways to improve water efficiency, save energy, and save the money you spend at home:

• Take a shower instead of a bath. A five-minute shower uses a third less water than a bath so it uses less energy too so you save water, save energy and save money.
• If you have a dishwasher, use it. An efficient dishwasher can use as little as 10% of the water needed to wash up in the sink. If you don't have a dishwasher, save water by boiling a kettle instead of running the hot tap until the water heats up. Pour the boiled water into the sink while running the warming hot tap and you'll have hot washing up water while being more water efficient.
• Water the garden with a watering can rather than the hose. It won't take you much longer and is more water efficient.
• Turn off the tap when brushing your teeth. The simplest water saving activity of all!

As so much of our time is spent at work, a lot of the water we use is in the workplace too. Here are a few ideas to help be more water efficient at work:

• Ask staff to save water by only boiling the amount of water they need rather than a full kettle each time
• Fix any dripping taps – one dripping tap can waste 5,000 litres of water in a year so by fixing that tape you save water and money
• If your toilets are quite old, fit a water-saving hippo in the cistern so less water is used with each flush
• Keep bottles or jugs of water in the fridge so staff can save water by not running the tap to get cold water to drink
• Give incentives to reduce water use and rewards when the water meter shows a reduction
• If you have an outdoor area fit a water butt so saved water can be used on plants
• Monitor the temperature in the office so that water isn't being heated for warmth unnecessarily as saving energy saves water

You can be more water efficient in the garden too. Here are a few tips to save water in your outdoor space:

How you can measure your water use:
Use free tools to help you find out how the energy you use affects how water efficient you are and how you can save water indirectly.

The Energy Saving Trust (EST) has launched a new tool to help you save energy and therefore save water. It works out how much CO2 is being released into the atmosphere when water in your home is heated. It's easy to not think about the energy that goes into making your taps' hot water but it's time we gave this more consideration. Being water efficient saves you energy and money.

The EST says that the energy used to heat water in homes accounts for 5% of the UK's carbon emissions. Their calculator will make it easy to see just how much water you use, therefore how much energy you're using to heat it, and how this affects your carbon footprint. Plus, the more energy you use, the more money you're spending. By thinking a bit more about how much energy and water efficient you are you can cut both and save money too.