SAVE WATER

Hose pipe bans are on the horizon as by some unknown quirk of fate, Britain has had no proper rainfall in months.  What?  Yes, this green and pleasant land is now one giant tetchy, sweaty, hay bale.  We can’t even pin the blame on Boris for this as he’s no longer in charge albeit there are some folks out there who’ll probably have a damned good try.  Basically, we’ve all got to find ways of saving precious water before Shit Creek becomes the Sahara.

 

My lawn's looking like Weetabix

Honestly, in my view the answer to the current water crisis has been staring us in our red faces all along. Quite simply, don’t wash!  This heatwave has provided us all with a perfectly legitimate excuse for being smelly.  Stop washing your bedding, let the dog roll around in its own filth and replace that fancy Glancy crockery with recyclable paper plates so you won’t have dirty dinner stuff to stick in a dishwasher.

 

Afternoon tea has been replaced with chilled water

I have been collecting my shower water in a bucket for the past few weeks and am shocked by how much water is simply wasted down the plug hole.  Every morning, a whole bucket is filled with soapy water which I then use to flush the upstairs toilet. 

 

Save water - get a shower bucket

Being on a water meter, this little hack is going to save me a fortune on bills and give me that warm, fuzzy feeling that I’m doing my bit to save the environment.  It will also offset the copious amounts of the stuff used by the builders to mix up brick mortar.

 

Use soapy shower water to flush your loo

I must confess that on alternate days, the daily shower has been replaced by a stand up ‘cat wash’ with a soapy flannel and my hair now only gets washed on Sundays.  Before you reach for your mobile to ring the RSPCA, no real cats are used in this process so don’t panic.  

Don't ask me to give you an all over body wash, you stinker!

As our office desks are still surrounded with clear plastic covid barricades, it offers some degree of protection to colleagues from nasty niffs and so long as you don’t put the desk fan on, you’ll probably get away with it. 

Working from home is the best way to save water or energy and should now be encouraged by the Government.  No-one on a Zoom call is truly going to know that you’ve not rinsed your pits or get a whiff of that unsavoury ‘Eau de BO’ emanating from your unwashed PJs.  You can kill two birds with one stone by working in bra and shorts to save on air conditioning.  Yeah, I’m all for it!

 

Pre-bedtime air conditioning

Instead of taxing us to death or imposing undemocratic individual water saving targets, the Government would do well to encourage local industry to invent products such as small solar powered air con units for the home that operate off grid or shower trays and sinks whose drainage systems are linked to water storage tanks or toilet cisterns so that run-off water is not wasted.

 

If all homes had underground water storage tanks then plants wouldn't end up fried to a crisp

It is not a case of punishing individuals with punitive charges or targets they’ll do their best not to meet but looking at how we can harness effective design to overcome water shortage challenges.