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Russ146

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Just an article on here about wasting water. Read on.......

Unless you are on a meter then dont be fooled by the propaganda that water is scarce and you should save every drop.

Its Britain and it rains in copious amounts and we have all seen the flooding that can and will happen. I live near the river severn which is over a mile wide and GAZILLIONS of gallons of water pour into the sea every second so if water was that short this would never happen.

No! The water companies churn out water saving BS to save them money in chlorine and the less we use the more they add to their multi million pound profits.

Dont hold back on rinsing well just to save your water company money is the point i am making

Even on a meter it only works out about �£3.50 per 1000 litres incoming and out going.
 
In the NW of England 142L of water is used a day by each person living there. River water is far more expensive to treat than water captured in reservoirs, because it rather less close to just H2O. It is not water that is expensive, just the process of making it drinkable.

What proportion of the 142L per person, per day is actually drunk, would you imagine?

That is why the "BS" the Water Companies produce is mandated by their Regulator, The same Regulator that dictates the split of net income between the shareholders and the lenders, both of whom finance the investment that means that water comes out of your tap and the drains do not overwhelm your environment.
 
Russ146 said:
Just an article on here about wasting water. Read on.......

Unless you are on a meter then dont be fooled by the propaganda that water is scarce and you should save every drop.

Its Britain and it rains in copious amounts and we have all seen the flooding that can and will happen. I live near the river severn which is over a mile wide and GAZILLIONS of gallons of water pour into the sea every second so if water was that short this would never happen.

No! The water companies churn out water saving BS to save them money in chlorine and the less we use the more they add to their multi million pound profits.

Dont hold back on rinsing well just to save your water company money is the point i am making

Even on a meter it only works out about £3.50 per 1000 litres incoming and out going.
Click to expand...
It might rain in copious amounts on the west side of the UK but in south east England that is not the case.
And that is reflected in the price of water. And so the 100m3 or so of metered water that goes in and out of my house every year costs me about £600.
So that's why I don't waste water. That's self interest and nothing to do with saving the water companies any money.
 
I did try to explain why it is that you are not getting one over on the "evil corporation", just letting down your neighbours by enhancing their contributions to the cost of the supply of drinkable water for all of you.

That is the price mechanism. Someone pays, and it will not be the ones you dislike the most. I really can promise that.
 
Parts of the country are wet and sparcely populated, other parts are drier and densely populated. Just because there isn't a water shortage in your area doesn't mean there isn't in another part of the country.

At the moment I don't think there are water shortages anywhere but if we have a long hot summer (if only) then things could change.

Why waste water. Use what you need but not more.

Also, the Seven is tidal so most of that water rushing past you is too salty to drink.
 
Wars WILL begin over access to clean drinking water sources, in fact it could be argued that it's already happening.

The infrastructure that is already in place ie the pipes to your house are all but paid for a million times over by us and our ancestors. The cost of maintaining these networks can't be much when my local water company, Severn Trent made 40 million profit!

And built a new office in Coventry a few years back at the cost of 6-7 million.

Personally I don't pay for my water as I'm covered by UN resolution 64/292 as are we all, 'the human right to clean water and sanitation'
 
My local privatised water company (the one I used to own!) is now owned by Canadian and Australian Pension Funds and a UK Venture Capital Company; and treat their customers like dirt.

Notwithstanding this fact, I've just won a battle with them via Ofwat, CCWater and WATRS!

Basically, they conned me into having a meter about five years ago whereby if I used less than 75 cubic metres a year I would have no Standing Charge but pay a slightly higher rate per cubic metre.

Full of the joys of saving water and money I spent nearly £1,000 installing a rainwater collection system for laundry and toilet flushing and managed to keep my water usage down to about 18 cubic metres a year.

This was mainly achieved by being out of the country for six months every year and using the "If it's yellow it's mellow and if it's brown it goes down." system of toilet flushing. :thumb:

Without a "by your leave", last year the water company cancelled the existing system and introduced a Standing Charge; and 40% of my first bill was for the new Standing Charge!

I protested and requested that I went back to an unmetered supply but was told that this was impossible because I had been on a metered supply for five years.

The battle started and after many, many emails between the water company and various government departments and watchdogs I managed to get the unmetered supply returned.

The unmetered supply will probably cost us about £4 a week more than before but not worrying about the amount of water we use makes for a much easier life. :thumb: :thumb:

BTW - I have disconnected the rainwater collection system (the system had paid for itself after 3 years anyway), now flush the toilet after every use and wash my brewing equipment religiously. :thumb: :thumb:
 
If its yellow let it mellow.

I quoted this to swmbo this morning!

The way I see it, and so does the UN, is that drinking water and sanitation is one of the corner stones and basis to human rights. In my eyes it should be a non profit organization that is paid for legitimately by the user.

Because its not I actively do not pay for my water, I know some people may have a problem with that, but I do pay all my other bills. As I see them as a service not I right.

Disclaimer: my views are my own and I don't have a hipster beard, or hug trees.

Pss, although I was once a tree surgeon for 3 years. So have hugged a tree or two, albeit for my own safety.
 
brumbrew said:
If its yellow let it mellow.

I quoted this to swmbo this morning!

The way I see it, and so does the UN, is that drinking water and sanitation is one of the corner stones and basis to human rights. In my eyes it should be a non profit organization that is paid for legitimately by the user.

Because its not I actively do not pay for my water, I know some people may have a problem with that, but I do pay all my other bills. As I see them as a service not I right.

Disclaimer: my views are my own and I don't have a hipster beard, or hug trees.

Pss, although I was once a tree surgeon for 3 years. So have hugged a tree or two, albeit for my own safety.
Click to expand...

In Flanders the first 100 cubic meters per year per household are FREE, but more than that and you pay handsomely.

The water companies still make a profit and careful people can still get free water! Americans call this a "Win-Win Situation". :thumb: :thumb:
 
thanks for your interesting replies. I would hasten to add i did say "if your not on a meter"

Bristol water makes a profit of over �£2,000,000 every six months thats after overheads such as treatment , staff wages and running costs. profit like that is pure greed, i am happy to pay for water but profit on a basic human right is diabolical.

Thames water is owned by a German bank and since owned by them have filled in 9 reservoirs to sell the land off for building in the London,thames area hence two days of sunshine and they impose a hose pipe ban due to low levels. That is why the South East is always the first to get hose pipe bans and shortage warnings. Its more about profits than supply
 
brumbrew said:
Personally I don't pay for my water as I'm covered by UN resolution 64/292 as are we all, 'the human right to clean water and sanitation'
Click to expand...

thats interesting


How do you apply this resolution and was it hard to implement?
 
And heres what our wonderful HM Foreign Office think about your right to clean drinking water;

National Explanation of Vote on UN Human Rights
Resolution 64/292 of 28 July 2010
The UK has abstained on this resolution today both for reasons of
substance and of procedure.
On substance, we do not believe there exists, at present, sufficient legal
basis under international law to ‘declare’ (or ‘recognise’) either water or
sanitation as freestanding human rights. Neither a right to water nor a
right to sanitation have been agreed upon in any UN human rights
treaty, nor is there evidence that they exist in customary international
law.
 
I don't pay for my water either. But that's because I supply it to myself. It comes out of a bog on the hillside above us, down my own pipes, out of my tap and back into the stream it would have gone in anyway.
Of course it's full of choliforms, so acid it'll dissolve copper pipes, and if anything goes wrong it's up to me to sort out - like earlier in the year it stopped running and we found the collection tank full of red snot.
But it makes excellent beer...
 
It seems the UK not only abstained to vote but actually tried to disassociate itself with the reseloution. The bar stools!

Either way, screw em! If the price were more fair then I'd pay, but in a country where milk is cheaper than the stuff that falls out the sky regularly then it says a lot obout our water companies.

Which may I add have been caught sending false letters of prosecution from legal companies that don't even exist.
 
Up to a few years ago we lived in Glenkindie in Scotland where the water ran off the hill into a cistern then into our home complete with coliforms and the occasional grain of sand; but after living and working in hotels and on rigs and platforms all over the world one of the first things I did when I got home was to pour myself a pint of water direct from the tap in the kitchen and savour the taste of pure mountain water straight off the hill.

The waste liquids and solids went into the Milton Burn at the back of the property after passing through a genuine septic tank ...

(i.e. "genuine" as in "made of concrete blocks with two separate chambers that anaerobically digested solids and therefore never needed emptying" as opposed to "made from plastic and onion shaped to knock out solids and needing emptying once every two or three years".)

... and an aerobic soakaway that comprised 100 metres of piping in a herringbone pattern and discharged water to the Milton Burn that was drinkable.

It wasn't a huge shock to have to pay for our water when we moved south because I used to live here and paid +/-£50 a year Water Rates for my unmetered supply.

However, the price of water over the last 40 years has risen over 1,000% and now sits at over £500 per year; and THAT was a shock! :doh: :doh:
 
Dutto said:
Up to a few years ago we lived in Glenkindie in Scotland where the water ran off the hill into a cistern then into our home complete with coliforms and the occasional grain of sand; but after living and working in hotels and on rigs and platforms all over the world one of the first things I did when I got home was to pour myself a pint of water direct from the tap in the kitchen and savour the taste of pure mountain water straight off the hill.

The waste liquids and solids went into the Milton Burn at the back of the property after passing through a genuine septic tank ...

(i.e. "genuine" as in "made of concrete blocks with two separate chambers that anaerobically digested solids and therefore never needed emptying" as opposed to "made from plastic and onion shaped to knock out solids and needing emptying once every two or three years".)

... and an aerobic soakaway that comprised 100 metres of piping in a herringbone pattern and discharged water to the Milton Burn that was drinkable.

It wasn't a huge shock to have to pay for our water when we moved south because I used to live here and paid +/-�£50 a year Water Rates for my unmetered supply.

However, the price of water over the last 40 years has risen over 1,000% and now sits at over �£500 per year; and THAT was a shock! :doh: :doh:
Click to expand...

It is a fact (arithmetic) that non-payment is an ever rising component of this cost., Most of a Water Company's "profits" actually goes towards the the cost of raising the money that was and still is needed to rebuild the infrastructure.
 

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