Page 53 - TNE WORKBOOK

Step 1: Calculating our water usage (10 mins)

Did you all find your last couple of water bills? How much water did you consume in your last billing period?
As a reference point, the ACT’s target water consumption per person is 150L per day. If you’ve got a calculator
on one of your phones, you can work out roughly how much daily water your household currently consumes
per person, by dividing the total amount of water used on the bill, by the total number of days in the billing
period, and then dividing the answer by the total number of people in the household

[total usage ÷ number of days in billing period] ÷ number of people in household = average daily water use
per person

Get a feel for where you could make the biggest cuts to your water waste by using this handy online tool
from ICON Water. Completing it takes about 2 minutes. If you’re not sure about one of the questions, just
enter your best guess.

Once you’ve filled out each of the boxes in The Water Savings Calculator to get your estimate of household
water use, play around with some of the entries (for example, when I changed ‘standard shower head’ to a ‘4
star showerhead’ for my household, it cut our home’s water consumption in half) to try to figure out where
you could make some of the biggest inroads into your water consumption.

How to use this tool

1 Type the link above into your web browser and press enter
2 Scroll down to the bottom of the page

3 Select the number of people in your household
4 Click the ‘launch’ button
5 Click on each of the boxes and select the options that best describe your household to get an estimate
of your daily usage.
6 Once you have this, play around with some of the options for different boxes to see how you can
reduce your water consumption.]

Step 2: Decide the actions you’ll take (15 mins)

There are some super easy actions you can take to save water in your home, and they don’t have to include
taking sponge baths! Each of the actions below can significantly reduce the amount of water that your
household uses. Note that you may do some of these activities already – if so, go you!

Tier 1: Easy-peasy lemon squeezy (Beginner level)

If you have a dishwasher, only run
it when it’s chock-a-block full

• Also select the ‘eco’ or ‘energy saving’ mode on the dishwasher if it has that option

• To help yourself change the habit, stick a post-it note on the dishwasher that says ‘don’t run me unless I’m
full’ (CAUTION: If you live with housemates or family, make sure you flag this in person first – don’t be that
passive-aggressive note leaver!)

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