Scottish Water Adverts - AIBU to think that this is stupid

[SideOfFoot]

I keep seeing adverts on tv for Scottish Water telling us to be more careful with how we use water. For example, one advert tells you to put cooled cooking fats into a sealed plastic container and send it to landfill instead of pouring the fats down the sink. This is surely worse than pouring it down the sink?! Another example is telling you to switch off taps when not in use. I have no problem with this and it is good advice. The problem I do have with this however, is that in England you pay for the water yourself, so there's an incentive to save water to save money. However, in Scotland, it's part of council tax - however much water I save, I will not save money, so there's no incentive to do so.

I live in Scotland and I would never dream of thinking "oh I will just keep that tap running cos it's not as if I'm paying for it"

For heavens sake what a stupid post

People have to be told to "turn off taps when not in use"? What now? Who on earth would walk away and leave a tap running? The noise would be annoying even if you didn't care about wasting water. Am I missing something here?

Why would people put fat down the sink?
A, it risks blocking your own sink / drainage,
B
, it risks blocking the public sewers forming fat bergs
C, if it does make it to the waste water plant it gets skimmed off in the primary settlement tanks and sent to landfill.

Turning taps off, if you are metered you think more about turning the tap off while brushing your teeth etc.

I believe the real reason Scotland hasn't followed England with meters and private water companies is Loch Katrine was donated to "The People of Glasgow to provide safe drinking water" and therefore cannot be sold to a private water company.

And also MrEBear, let's face it, after this summer we're in no danger of facing a drought any time soon

I've seen these adverts too. They are quite cartoon-y and somewhat patronising, but it seems that people need to be told!

I don't throw fat down the sink if I can help it. If I'm cooking, I'll wait until it solidifies and scrape it into the bin. The saving water thing seems less relevant in Scotland as we have so much of it.... when we lived in the south of England hosepipe bans and water shortages were common during the summer, Scotland is much wetter and we don't often have those issues. And agree, that nobody is on a meter here whereas many more homes do in England and Wales.

I'm in Scotland and, despite the abundance of water, have so far managed not to turn all the taps on and go out for the day just because I can! We are billed for water just not in the same way as in England. I do get the point though that people may be more frugal with water if we were metered and billed in the same way as the utilities.

As for fats they go in the specific food waste recycling bin our council gives us.

Its not just the abundance of water, or fear of a drought, yes water is free from the sky, but there is a cost to treating it & making it potable. Not to mention treating waste water before it goes back in to rivers etc.

The saving water thing seems less relevant in Scotland as we have so much of it

Think of it as saving electricity. Treating water uses quite a bit of energy, which you pay through via both the water bill/council tax levels, and then via higher electricity bill levels as new infrastructure has to be built to generate the electricity that could otherwise be saved. Particularly as increasingly that electricity comes from subsidised sources.