Green tips

Some interesting facts about water.

• Turning off the tap when you clean your teeth can save around 8 litres of water a minute.
• A cubic metre of water weighs a tonne. That's about the same as a small car.
• Save water by growing drought-resistant plants such as sedums and lavender, using a watering can rather than a hosepipe and watering early in the morning or in the evening.
• We use an average of nearly 150 litres of water a day in our homes; our great grandparents managed with about 18 litres.
• It takes about 450,000 litres of water to produce a small car.
• UK water companies collect, treat and pump almost 18 billion litres of water every day, nearly a quarter of which goes down the toilet.
• A garden hose or sprinkler can use almost as much water in an hour as an average family of four uses in one day.
• One dripping tap can use at least 5,500 litres of water a year. Mending the tap washer could save you about £18 a year.
• Overall, only 3% of the water entering the average home is actually used as ‘drinking’ water.
• Trees are about 75% water.
• Forestry Commission records show that almost 20% of trees that they inspected recently in the UK were damaged or killed as a result of drought during the long dry summers.
• Our wetlands are drying out. A recent survey found out that over 70% were in an unfavourable condition.
• Health experts reckon that we need 6-8 glasses of water every day to keep us fit and healthy (and aid our concentration).
• A litre of bottled water can be more expensive to buy than a litre of petrol.
• The dishwater v. washing debate: recent research shows that on average conventional washeruppers use 63 litres per session, and if they then rinse the detergent off under a running tap, this rises to 150 litres. A modern dishwater can use as little as 15 litres per cycle.
• About a third of all the clean, drinkable water you use in your home is used to flush the toilets.
• A bath can use up to 100 litres, a shower uses about a third of this. But beware - modern power showers can use more water than a bath if you shower for more than 5 minutes.
• The average roof collects about 85,000 litres of rain in a year! This could fill 450 water butts with free water.
• Most moisture is lost through the top 10cm of the soil in the first five days of hot weather.
• Many people in the world exist on 10 litres of water or less. Some UK toilets can use that in one flush of the toilet.