Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth with a limited water supply, but a typical Australian lifestyle uses a lot of water. Each year Australia uses 14,101,000,000,000 litres of water which is 629,000 litres per person and 170 litres per day. Direct water use in the home is only a small quantity of our overall water use, the rest of our water footprint does come from the water required to make all the things that we use.
Products that require a lot of water to produce include:
Exposed Water Leak
   Wool – 500,000 litres per kilogram
   Cotton – 25,000 litres per kilogram
   Chocolate – 24,000 litres per kilogram
   Beef – 15,500 litres per kilogram
   Rice – 3,000 litres per kilogram
   Paper – 10 litres per sheet
Household Appliances:
   Efficient Shower – 11 litres per minute
   Toilet – 9 litres per flush
   Dishwasher – 20 litres per load
   Top loading washing machine – 65 litres per load
   Front loading washing machine – 40 litres per load
Our tips to help save water around the home are:
   Fix leaky taps –- even a slowly dripping tap can waste up to 20,000 litres a year
Try a water saving shower head and fix aerators to your taps and limit showers to four minutes. Keep a bottle of tap water in the fridge at all times for drinking. This way you don’t need to run the tap in summer until it gets cold enough to drink. Only use your dishwasher and washing machine with full loads to optimise water usage or switch the settings to suit the load. Install a water tank with the help of a professional who specializes in plumbing brisbane. In many locations, installing a water tank is an easy and practical way of gathering rainwater for use in the home or garden. Another idea is to plan a ‘waterwise’ garden using plants with low water requirements. Don’t over-water your lawn, instead, train it to use less water by encouraging the roots to grow deeper. Set your mower level higher during summer and let your lawn grow longer because keeping grass longer shades the soil surface and reduces evaporation loss. If you have a pool or spa, keep it covered when not in use. Because covers help prevent the water from evaporating and keeping out branches and leaves.
