Water is required

Feeling very smug to be able to get our grey water into the water butt i.e. our bath water. 

The garden is very dry and having had no real rainfall now, our previous two water butts are empty. So keeping our pots moist let alone our greenhouse and raised beds watered is a real challenge. 


So what do you do? 


Well you rig up a hose pipe to another water butt and get your bath water into it. Amazingly, though worryingly, the bath almost fills the water butt. It does mean not turning on the tap to water the flowers etc. This is more than wanting to save water or saving money on the water meter, though its helpful. It is because the reality with the ever changing climate we are all going to have to use water more wisely. 





You would think that with a planet whose surface is 71% covered by water this should not be an issue. But we are talking about freshwater availability. Most freshwater 2.5% is locked up in ice and the ground so it means only 1% of freshwater water is available. That is a very precious resource. 


We use 160 litres of water directly, but when "virtual water" is taken to account, the average daily water footprint of people in the UK is 4,643 litres per person, of which around 3,000 litres is imported. (WWF UK Water Footprint 2008)


Our over consumption of everything is a major driver of water scarcity in UK and around the World because everything we buy needs water for growing or manufacture.


It takes 

  • 10,000 litres of water to produce a pair of jeans, 
  • or a cup of tea (250ml) needs  120 equal size cups of water.  
  • While a single avocado uses 270 litres of water to grow 
  • and a cell phone takes 1,100 litres to manufacture. 
  • A standard cup of coffee (125ml) has a water footprint of 130 litres. 
No wonder the United nations projects that by 2025 about two thirds of people on the planet will live with water scarcity. That means now not tomorrow.


So while it may seem like a bit of fun to get the bath water into the garden it really is a serious matter.





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