OT - EcoBollox from the Observer via the Grauniad

[David]

This contains gems such as

"Since 1985, there has been a 70% increase in household water use in England as more and more homes have been fitted with showers, dishwashers and washing machines."

?A lack of legal efficiency standards mean we needlessly waste water by using appliances like dishwashers or washing machines"

Hmmmm.....

What was the situation before the increase in *fitting* dishwashers, washing machines, showers?

Dishwashers - AFAIK they are far more efficient than washing up in the sink by hand. Or did people not wash dishes before?

Washing machines - did people not wash clothes? I assume they used a laundrette (washing machine) if they didn't own one.

Showers - did people just not wash? Bath once a month if they needed it or not? Just a "sponge bath" with a flannel and cold water at the outside tap? Allegedly showers are more efficient than traditional baths.

I can see that having a dishwasher, washing machine and shower can make it easier to use water than if you have to go to a laundrette, public baths, wash dishes by hand but how many people still had to do this in 1985?

However this is not what the article specifically says.

There is also no link {citation needed} to show that the 70% increase is due to the stated reasons. It also doesn't say if the increase is per house or across all houses in the UK in which case it would be at least partially due to increased population since 1985.

All in all it looks like an attempt to shift the blame onto the end user for the lack of capacity coupled with inefficiency (such as leaks in the network) which is leading to demand outstripping supply.

Cheers

Dave R

[newshound]

All too common with the current generation of reporters, IMHO

[The Natural Philosopher]

Dish washers, showers and pressure washers were all touted on the basis that they *saved* water.

[The Nomad]

Ref:Diesel

HTH

Avpx

[mm0fmf]

Diesel was promoted because it would lower CO2 emissions compared to petrol. Something it did very well. Having lowered CO2, you then hit the next problems, particulates which DPFs reduce massively and SCR systems (AdBlue / DEF) to reduce nitreous oxides.

[John Rumm]

Not really - Diesel was touted that it produced less CO2, which it still does. However now they are worried about the NOx compounds as well as the particulates.

[Fredxx]

Both of which are virtually eliminated from diesel engines. The issue is now tyre particulates from EVs which are heavier than their diesel counterparts.

[John Rumm]

When not cheating of course :-)

[RJH]

Which is based on a report published by: water companies. An almost completely unreferenced piece of propoganda puffed up to present themselves in a good light with carte blanche to increase costs while providing less. And the Guardian chooses to believe it.

That's not in the report - so far as I can see. Looks like it's a made up figure.

My use of a dishwasher results in far less water consumption. Just to get hot water would involve running off 5 litres of cold . . .

>

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Clearly more efficient water use is now happening, so I do not see where they are coming from on that standpoint. Older washing machines of the twin tub variety used large amounts of water compared to the current designs. People used to wash up in the sink and often had to use two bowls oof water one to wash and one to rinse. but I don't know enough about dishwashers as I do not have one living alone with no room for one in my kitchen. I'd say what has increased in out of town properties is the use of sprinklers, but another issue is that when it rains the water tends to go straight to rivers through drains and not be retained in soil, this causing flash floods and the destruction of flood plains is a factor. This means to some extent that most water we could be storing goes straight into the sea rather than flowing slowly down rivers and being used for people. Brian

[Custos Custodum]

I can well remember my mum using a scrubbing board in the kitchen sink and a hand-operated wringer on a trestle my dad made (ObDIY).

[alan_m]

Surely it's all due to Brexit?

[alan_m]

One of the "big brand" dishwasher manufactures is actually advertising this feature.

[Dave Plowman (News]

You can reduce the CO2 output from a petrol engine too. But to achieve this you increase other emissions. Which of course a vast number of modern diesels cheat the system with.

[RJH]

Doesn't surprise me. I see 3.3bn litres lost each day through leaks. And water cos telling us to not use dishwashers. Whatever next.

[newshound]

Political correctness aside, isn't it actually better for water companies to encourage us to reduce consumption? Most commercial organisations promote the opposite view.

[Algernon Goss-Custard]

Where are water companies telling us not to use dishwashers?

[Tim Streater]

A figure for the country's total daily consumption, perhaps? At 100 litres per day per person, that's 6.5 billyun litres per day. That would be pretty bad.

Still, at least people seem to be reporting leaks. The website to do so seems easy to use, and several leaks I've seen recently were already there when I went to report them. Sometimes it seems to take a while for them to get round to fixing them, however.

[RJH]

In the OP's linked article, loosely paraphrasing the report it's based on.

[RJH]

Reduced water consumption would be good.

But might mean the companies supplying it would make less money - in metered households for example. That's one reason to be very wary of any of their own 'research'.

On which, the figure I cited is over 10 years old - they have at least got the waste from leaks to just below 3B litres/day:

Over 100 litres per household per day.