I live in Devon. I am under a hosepipe ban. My supplier (South West Water) is very kindly suggesting some "easy wins" for me to save water, like taking less time in the shower, or using my washing machine less. It reckons that this way my household could save 12 litres per person per day, for a total of 48 litres saved per day, or about 18,000 litres per year. Sounds like a lot, right?
Yeah. The thing is, South West Water (in common with the other privatised water companies) lost 90 *million* litres *per day* in leaks in the last year for which data are available (https://www.ofwat.gov.uk/publication/leakage-dataset-march-2023/). And even that is likely a significant under-estimate, because it's under investigation by the regulator on suspicion of mis-reporting its leak figures. It has also paid out £112M in dividends to shareholders this week, while kindly putting my bills up, so sorry, we need money for investment to stop dumping all this sewage we're dumping. Illegally.
My little 48 litres is a literal drop in the ocean. Why on Earth would I put myself out when it will make not a blind bit of difference to the water available for general use?
In absolute terms, 18kl per year feels like a lot, granted. But the sheer effrontery of coming to me effectively cap in hand while handing out an actual fortune to their shareholders makes me want to just leave all my taps running.
South-West Water: Take the beam out of your own eye. Fix your flood of leaks before you come asking me to inconvenience myself to save (relatively speaking) drops. You've got the money for it, or at least you did before you gave it to your shareholders. Scum.
#uk #water #leaks #ukwater #devon #hosepipeban #southwestwater #nationaliseukwater
@trinsec Yeah. I know it's not just Devon, but the likes of Thames Water (who as far as I'm aware are worse) aren't billing me. ;-)
I was thinking about it more after I posted that. And actually I don't think it's about saving water at all. Because the argument being made is essentially "Water is of concern to all of us, saving it is everyone's responsibility", however unrealistic it may be to expect voluntary large-scale changes in consumer behaviour. And the thing about *that* is, if it's everyone's responsibility, then it isn't South West Water's. It lets them off the hook, they can sit back, throw a few pennies at the problem (while paying off their shareholders) and declare they've done their bit.
No. You haven't done your bit, and it isn't everyone's responsibility. It is yours. Go fix it.
@VoxDei It's not just the water either, and it's not just Devon. The factories and all that shit are the big users, but who have to skimp on their conveniences? The consumers who use just a fraction of whatever those businesses use. :P
Not that it's a bad idea to save whatever resources, but it's a bit ridiculous that the sole responsibility seems to be on the normal people. /rant