Water wise action plan
- 1. By Grace Rm 15 Year 7
- 2. Our House In our house we have one bathroom and toilet, a dishwasher, clothes washing machine and we water our garden with the scheme water. Even though our house is small, our water use bills from the Water Corporation show our water usage is above the average of Shenton Park without a garden bore. We decided that we needed to reduce our water consumption.
- 3. Water use data The first step was to monitor our water use. Below is a table with the data. The data in red are the high water use times. Day 1 Day 2 Day3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Morning 04325760 04326210 04326510 04328210 04328860 04330140 04332140 Afternoon 04325910 04326270 04327710 04328600 04329330 04331200 04332320 Evening 04326050 04326440 04327940 04328720 04330030 04331730 04333790 Total 290 210 1430 510 1170 1590 1650 8030 Day 1 Day 2 Day3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Morning 04334810 04339720 04342410 04343510 04350570 04352180 04352770 Afternoon 04338320 04339980 04342990 04346160 04351290 04352270 04352940 Evening 04339460 04340350 04343720 04349790 04351370 04352600 04353050 Total 4650 630 1310 6280 800 420 280 14370
- 4. Results of Data Collection I collected water use data for 14 days. The data showed we used most of the water in the evenings and through the night. This is because we all have our showers at night time and we use the dishwasher and washing machine at night time. When we are home, that is when we use the toilet. This meant that we could save the most water by cutting back water use in these activities.
- 5. Action Plan My data showed that the water use was at the times when we are home so the water saving plan will have to be with many water using activities. I called a meeting with my family and I explained what was going to happen. My family all agreed that we should do the action plan and that it would be a good idea to save more water. We thought that any water we can save would be worth it.
- 6. Shower Put a 4 minute timer in the shower and make sure we only have one shower a day.
- 7. Toilet Toilet – make sure that everyone uses the half flush lever on our toilet. I worked out that we can save 60 litres of water a week.
- 8. Dishwasher We normally use the normal setting on our dishwasher. We will now use the Eco wash setting.
- 9. Cloths washing machine Collect waste water from a load of washing and empty it onto the garden. This water also has detergent in it which is good for the garden because it helps to dissolve waxes in the soil which stops water getting to the roots of the plants.
- 10. Results of Implementation of the Action Plan - Data Day 1 Day 2 Day3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Morning 04353270 04353820 04354100 04355070 04355480 04355850 04356280 Afternoon 04353510 04353870 04354270 04355190 04355530 04355970 04356410 Evening 04353700 04353910 04354290 04355310 04355570 04356120 04356550 Total 430 90 190 240 90 270 270 3280
- 11. Results The average water consumption for our house before the action plan was 11,200 litres per week. After the action plan was introduced the water use dropped to 3280 litres per week. This was a very successful result because saving any litres of water was the success criteria.
- 12. Conclusion My action plan worked. We saved 7920 litres of water in a week. My family thought that using the shower timer gave the biggest water saving. We all knew that we had longer showers everyday (we estimated an average of 6 minutes) and by reducing the time to 4 minutes we saved on average 48 litres per day. That’s 17520 litres a year saved. I'm very happy to have done this and I know that it has helped not just my family but the whole community. I know that what I've just done isn't just homework but a life changing thought to grow up with.