TravelCrunch » World Water Week 2009

More water saving tips

John — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:13:29 +0000

Its Tuesday of World Water Week 2009. Here are two more water saving tips for travellers.

Hallgerd - Fotolia.com

Tip 3

Do not leave the tap running while brushing your teeth. All you need is to wet the toothbrush.

Tip 4

In a similar vein. If you are staying in self catering accommodation, and are doing washing up, then use the dishwasher if it is provided. Dishwashers consume resources in the form of energy, raw materials, including water when manufactured.

If they are there use them.

They use less water than hand washing.

If washing up by hand then fill the sink. Do not use running water to wash your pans and dishes.

World Water Week -Travel tips for saving water

John — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 18:04:31 +0000

This week is World Water Week a cause very close to my heart as WaterAid is my favourite charity. It is a sad fact that 884 million people in developing countries have no access to clean water. Many walk miles for a container of dirty unsafe water each day. Every 17 seconds a child dies of a water borne disease. While about 70% of the Earth is covered by water only 3% is in the form of fresh water and the majority of this is in the polar ice caps. WaterAid works on projects to bring safe water and sanitation to communities. it along with other organisations is making slow headway as there was closer to 1 billion people without safe water 10 years ago.

There is a long way to but as populations increase there can be no corresponding increase in fresh water on this small planet.

Tourism can also put strains on water supplies. It is a fact for example that the average water consumption by a French person is 140 litres of water per person per day while at home. When travelling this rockets to 300 litres per person per day! A typical occupied hotel room in the USA consumes 825 litres of water per day! A modern toilet flush will only produce 4.6 litres of water, so that’s an awful lot of flushes. These rates of consumption put tremendous strains on water supplies in some parts of the world. So how can we be more frugal with our use of water while travelling (or at home for that matter)?

Tip 1

Do some research before your travel. Will you be staying in accommodation that has considered sustainability. Do they have measures in place for conserving drinking water such as dual flush toilets, aerated shower heads and tap faucets, do they make use of rainwater or grey water? You might also want to consider energy reduction measures and waste minimisation measures adopted as well.

Tip 2

Obvious really but short showers consume less water than long deep baths.

Finally as it is World Water Week consider supporting a water charity such as WaterAid.

Information – WaterAid, Mountain Riders and Fairmont Hotels

World Water Week 22-28 March 2009

John — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:59:35 +0000

World Water Day is on Sunday 22 March and World Water Week is the following six days. WaterAid, one of my favourite charities, has conducted a survey and found that most visitors to restaurants would prefer tap water. Expensive ‘lifestyle’ water is often pushed by restaurants, making diners uneasy about ordering tap water. WaterAid has just launched their ‘Tap into WaterAid’ campaign, where they have got a number of restaurants to donate some money when they order tap water. I think this is an excellent idea, as it not only reduces the strain on limited resources but saves the consumer and also funds WaterAid. Even in the 21st Century 884 million people in the developing world are without any clean water, something that WaterAid and similar NGO’s are trying to tackle.

Buying these ‘lifestyle’ bottled waters that have been heavily promoted by advertising and peer pressure over the years is very costly to the environment. The video in this post is by Back2Tap and has a fun quiz about plastic bottle / bottled water. It shows exactly what drinking bottled water means in environmental terms and even the difference in financial cost. It suggests that we purchase stainless steel water bottles for use when outside the home.

TNS surveyed 2,018 people aged 16-64 between 10 to 16 March 2009 using an online survey.

WaterAid’s survey revealed that:

38% of respondents always ask for tap water in a restaurant
25% of respondents prefer to ask for tap water, but sometimes feel pressure to order bottled water in a restaurant.
37% of respondents always ask for bottled water in a restaurant