What’s Your Water Usage?

While the City of Cape Town is currently urging residents to use only up to 87 litres per person, a day, we started wondering: what is the standard water usage for a person, every day? Let’s consider the following:
Every time you flush your toilet, you use between 6 and 9 litres of water. Suddenly, every flush seems like a lot of water, right? That’s because it is!
The standard showerhead uses up to 25 litres of water, per minute. That seems crazy to think of, but that’s why using water-efficient, low-flow showerheads, that use only up to 8 litres of water per minute, should be the standard in every home. If we adopt the Cape Town way of showering for only two minutes, turn the water off when we soap up, and keep a bucket in the shower to collect water, we could all save a bundle of water, every day. These 2-minute shower songs could help you get your groove on, and stay within the time limit too.
Washing the dishes every night feels like such a chore, but it’s also a big consumer of water, so don’t feel tempted into filling up the sink twice. Washing a single sinkful of dishes can consume up to 18 litres of water. If you prefer to let your dishwasher do the dirty work, make sure it’s full first. Dishwashers use between 15 and 75 litres of water for a single wash.
Running the washing machine feels so simple, but your standard washing machine uses between 60 to 150 litres of water, for a single wash. That’s why it’s so important to only run your washing machine when it’s full. Otherwise, you’d be wasting water!
But, now that you’re clean, your laundry’s done, and your kitchen is spotless, you still need to eat and drink. The standard water usage for a person who cooks one meal a day, drinks 2 litres of water, and then has few cups of tea or coffee every day, averages out to approximately 4 to 5 litres. Let’s not forget – your pet needs to be washed, fed, and watered too, so add in at least an extra litre for them, per pet, per day too!
And, of course, if you have any pesky dripping taps in the house…you’re using way more water than you realise. A single dripping tap can waste up to 20,000 litres in a year. That’s a whole lot of water, down the drain!
How are you using water more efficiently, and what are your tips for keeping your family’s water usage down? If you’re looking for water storage solutions, or tips on how to cut your water usage, get in touch with our team and let’s chat!