to not understand how you waste water

[moogster1a]

if you leave a tap on all day / flush the loo loads/ wash every item of clothing you own, the waste water goes down the pipes and basically to waste water treatment plants, cleaned up, and put back in the clean water system.
I see how this can be expensive, but the water isn't actually wasted, so why are we encouraged to use the same amount as if we were living on the skeleton coast of Namibia?

It's not about the amount of water, unless there is a drought (have you seen reservoirs in the middle of a hot summer), but treating a ridiculous amount of extra water because some people waste it uses up more energy, manpower, resources etc.

Also afaik, treated water goes back to the sea, it's not a closed system in which the same small quantity of water is recycled again and again.

London has less Average annual rainfall than Dallas, Texas. This lack of rainfall is exacerbated by lots of people living here and the water infrastructure being very old and leaky. Hence, where I live, I do feel the need to save water.

Waste water treatment plants? You mean sewage works. The water is nowhere near drinkable after going through a sewage works. Drinkable water comes from rain or boreholes, and is cleaned and treated before entering the system. It is not an infinite resource.

But most rainfall comes from water which has evaporated off the seas, so the dirty water that enters the sea is eventually going to come down as rain and can be used as clean water

I have always wondered this too. Good question, OP.

don't get the biscuit faces why bother posting that face? :S

i think it's quite a good question myself

if you leave a tap on all day / flush the loo loads/ wash every item of clothing you own, the waste water goes down the pipes and basically to waste water treatment plants, cleaned up, and put back in the clean water system.

really? I never knew that, thats made me feel a bit ill tbh. i better start drinking vodka or something instead of water!!

tallulah have you never seen the classic auntie mabel poo episode

i also thought water was drinkable after going through sewage works. isn't that the whole idea of them?

I dont get it either and never have. I don't understand how water can run out cos it never leaves does it? I'm clearly just too dim. If a reservoir is empty why can't they get water out the sea and clean it?

I've wondered that too, TBH. We used to watch a video in school with the tune: "The pilgrims drank it/The dinosaurs drank it/And now you're drinkin it tooooooo..." with the lesson that it's all the same water.

I did feel awful today dumping out an entire pool full. (The ground wasn't level where we'd put it and we had to bring it elsewhere.) It was a lot of "good" water and I wanted to ship it off somewhere where they don't have clean water. :( I should have put it in buckets or something and saved it for the dog's dish or watering plants, etc.

Dont be giving the OP bisuits! She doen't understand...she's not advocating waste ass far as she sees it.

waste water goes into the sea after a huge amount of energy has been expended to clean it.

we then have to wait for the planet's energy systems to evaporate the water into clouds and then for the clouds to rain over land before the water gets back into the reserviors and we can again expend a huge amount of energy sterilising it for drinking.

and most rain falls in places with lots of it (lake district, scotland) rather than where the water might have been used (east anglia, kent).

it is possible to deslinate sea water (take the salt out) but it is really really expensive.. they do this a little bit in southern spain, but it's so hard and expensive it's actually probably cheaper to buy in bottled water from wetter areas.

Because it is easier to get us consumers to be careful about water rather than the water companies facing up to the real problem .... leaking pipes.

More water is wasted through leaking pipes than what the nation wastes.

Plus this country is becoming overcrowded and so more resources are being used ....

i think that they might desalinate sea water in Dubai too but then Dubai is an incredibly rich country.

There, now that's perfectly understandable. Thank you fluffles !

Good explanation Fluffles, but the water isn't actually wasted is it? it's just expensive to treat. The rain does fall mostly in the lakes etc. but it's still there. it's a question of having the infrastructure to transport it rather than that the water has disappeared after being used,

Thames Water are building a desalination plant on the outskirts of london. They are expensive to run and take loads of energy, but its cheaper than fixing all the leaky pipes apparently.

There wouldn't be water issues anywhere in the world if human beings had enough energy supplies to desalinate unlimited quantities of seawater, clean foul water, and transport clean enough water to all the dry places that could use it. As it is, we don't have the energy, so being careful with water use makes more sense, and that applies everywhere. Every pint of drinking water represents a certain amount of energy expended to get it into that state.

I agree that water companies need to fix their leaks but that doesn't IMO absolve us ordinary people of the responsibility to take care with it too.

When industries waste gallons and gallons I don't see why I should economise on my weekly bath or leave the toilet full of piss or let my pot
plants die.

i've dunked the biscuits doled out by PPs, in the tea i've just drunk reading this very interesting thread!

i've often asked this question, even my BIL (who works for Severn Trent Water) couldn't answer me as well as the desalination explanation given here!

MN has changed my life today

The H2O bit of the water isn't wasted, it's still there, but the cleanness and in-the-right-placeness of that particular bit of 'wasted' water is, definitely, wasted.

I think when people say 'don't waste water' they're really just using that as a short cut to mean 'don't waste clean [drinking] water'. After it's gone down the drain or wherever, we truly haven't got that clean drinking water any more, we've got the H2O yes but not the vital attributes that we need it to have when coming out of our taps - we have to pay in energy and therefore cash to get them back.

Although of course we don't need it to be drinking water when it comes out of our toilet cisterns, but unfortunately that's how most of our houses are set up.