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Residential Water Consumption (Per Capita)
What Does This Mean?
Why Is This Important?
How Are We Doing?
Taking Responsibility
- What You Can Do
We Must All Be
Accountable – Conserving Our Valuable Drinking
Water - Find Out More
What Does This Mean?
It means how much water we use in our homes each
year.
The consumption of water on a per capita basis
is the amount of treated water (from the
drinking water system) that each Londoner on
average consumes in their homes each
day. This consumption comes from our activities
in the bathrooms, kitchens, and laundry rooms of
our homes. It also includes the use of outdoor
taps to wash our cars and water our lawn and
gardens.
Why Is This Important?
Because fresh, clean water is a limited
resource. We need to understand how to use it
wisely and what the cost is if we don’t.
Almost all of the fresh water we use comes from
our water distribution system. This water
requires expensive mechanical processes (paid by
water rates) and energy to treat and deliver to
your home. When used in the home, it then enters
the sewage system and requires further
collection and treatment in order to be released
into the Thames River. This all costs money and
impacts our environment.
This water is drawn from the Great Lakes, a body
of water that is under increasing stress as
demand for water increases across the Great
Lakes basin. Lake Huron supplies approximately
85% of our water supply and Lake Erie supplies
the remaining 15%. We are blessed with a fresh
and abundant water supply however our use is
much greater than our needs. Water conservation
is a needed activity required to minimize our
increasing stresses on the Great Lakes. This is
especially true as our climate warms and our
fresh water source becomes smaller.
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How Are We Doing?
â
Staying The Same
The chart above shows average residential
consumption in units called LCPD, or “Litres per
Capita per Day” for single family residential
use in London over the past 5 years (2000 to
2005). It illustrates the use of water per
person and a shows a gradual downward trend.
Residential water consumption has been
decreasing on average for the past decade and
the graph further illustrates this trend. This
decrease is due to a number of factors including
a more cost recovery payment system,
improvements in the water distribution system
(more efficient system; less leaks), and
improvements to the building code requiring more
water efficient fixtures (toilets, shower head,
faucet aeration). The variation from year to
year can be explained by the weather and our
response in consumption during dry, hot summers
(2000 and 2002) versus wetter and cooler summers
(2001 and 2004). Outside yard watering explains much of this
variation.
It makes you wonder why we are using treated
drinking water to grow our grass and gardens
when we could be using untreated water (chlorine
free water) delivered to us from the clouds
courtesy of our eavestroughs and rainbarrels.
It is also noteworthy that bottled water
purchased in stores is not subject to the
stringent quality controls of treated drinking
water. Bottled water is extremely expensive to
buy compared to treated tap water and
contributes to an excessive amount of unnecessary
energy being spent on filling bottles and
recycling containers. Refillable water bottles
make more sense as they contain higher quality
drinking water from our taps and it is cheaper.
The equivalent cost of a bottle of water will
supply an entire household enough water for the
day.
In 2005, the average residential home use of
treated water is approximately 250 litres / day
(about 1 large bathtub). This amount can be
substantially reduced using water conservation
measures both inside and outside the home. Try
low flow fixtures in your home. Outside your
home, rainbarrels are a natural source of water
for yard irrigation and the water source does
not cost anything since it is provided by Mother
Nature.
Compared to 2000, the trend is a 1 or 2 %
decrease in consumption, still within what we
would say is the status quo. This is generally
seen to be a minor decrease and reflects
improvements to the efficiency of our facilities
(low flush toilets in new homes, a more valuable
commodity, less wasteful society) which can
certainly be improved upon with more
conservation efforts.
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Taking Responsibility - What You Can Do
Water Conservation in the Yard
- Use a rain barrel to collect rain water for
gardening purposes
- Water your lawn only when necessary, and
according to summer water restrictions
- Adjust your watering to the weather and soil
conditions
- Water early in the morning or late at night to
avoid excessive evaporation
- Use a broom to clean sidewalks and driveways
instead of a hose
- Hand wash your car with a bucket and sponge so you only need a light rinse to get rid of the
soap; and park your car on the lawn so the water
helps the grass
- Put a layer
of mulch around trees and plants. Bark and
other mulch or peat moss slow down evaporation
and help keep the soil moist
Water Conservation in the Bathroom
- Install low flow shower heads and low flow
toilets to reduce consumption and generation of
waste water from your home
- Fix leaks in your toilet and replace faulty
tap washers in your sink
- Replace your water guzzling toilet with an
efficient 6 litre or dual flush toilet
- For toilets larger than 6 litres
(1.3 gallons) place a plastic bottle filled
with water into the tank. This reduces the
volume of water in the tank, but still
provides enough for flushing. Never place a
brick in your toilet tank, as it will
eventually crumble and can damage the plumbing
Water Conservation in the Kitchen and Laundry
- When washing dishes by hand, don’t wash or
rinse with running water. Use a dish, tubs or
plug the sink to rinse dishes
- Keep a
bottle of drinking water in the refrigerator.
This beats the wasteful habit of running the
tap water to cool it before drinking
- Always run dishwashers with a full load. This
will save water, energy, detergent and money
- Before loading the dishwasher, scrape dishes
into the garbage instead of rinsing them with
running water
- Use load
selector on your clothes washing machine to
match the water level to the size of the load.
If you do not have a selector, only wash full
loads
We Must All Be Accountable – Conserving
Our
Valuable Drinking Water -
Find Out More
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