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Water use
The average water consumption for people in the UK needs to come down as hotter summers increase the chance of drought.
"The EA said customers in England need to cut their water use by 2.5 billion litres a day by 2055 – down from an average of around 140 litres per person per day to 110 litres per day. "
I looked at our previous water bills. In summer, we use around 150L and in winter, significantly than that, but that's the total usage for three adults and a child who is with us for two days a week.
Which makes our individual water usage just under a third of the national average, and already within the target by a good margin. And that includes some water for topping up the pond and watering some of the plants.
We're on a water meter and pay about £170 per year for the household.
We've become very good over the years, at not using a lot of water.
LAUNDRY
A lot of people wear an item once, and automatically chuck it in the laundry (I was completely unaware of this until a woman told me that she washed her teenage son's jeans every day)
Me? If it isn't visibly dirty, and it doesn't smell when I sniff under the armpits, then it's back in the wardrobe, or wear for another day.
If you're selective in the fabrics you buy, you can dramatically reduce the need for laundry.
Linen is amazing. It really doesn't pick up body smells at all - that's because it naturally wicks moisture away from the body, in a way that synthetic fabrics can't.
I found this out while doing my English Civil War Reenactment. The bottom layer of clothing for women is always a linen smock. So, I made a linen smock. I washed it once, to soften the fabric a little, then -having been told that it softened very nicely with wear, started to wear it as a nightie. The most comfortable night garment I've ever worn. I kept on wearing it, every night, waiting for it to get smelly. It didn't. And the fabric now has a wonderful feel when you touch it (probably something to do with the natural oil in flax, but I don't know for sure)
Whereas if I wear something polyester based, it's often just one day's wear.
Cotton is very good as well - not quite so good as linen, but I can wear a cotton t-shirt as an under-layer and get quite a few days out of that before fails the sniff test.
What do you do to reduce your water consumption?
no subject
I don't put upper-body garments back into the wardrobe; if I'm hoping to get more wear out of them, they stay over the back of the chair after being taken off, so that I know they are no longer 'clean'. On the other hand, most of my trousers, for example, get washed once or twice a year if they get actually muddy, and I own a number of garments that are simply not washable at all (though in emergencies I'll bend a point and rub at spills with a wet cloth), and this hasn't really been a problem. Since they were all acquired second-hand some of them quite possibly haven't been washed in fifty years :-p
This is why one wears (and washes) underwear, in order to keep the non-washable garments away from direct bodily contact, or at least contact with body parts that tend to shed the most grease/sweat.
I probably mainly cut my water usage by simply not washing, or at least not washing any more often than I can be bothered to do :-p A quick swipe with a wet flannel usually seems to be adequate, though I don't wash my feet often enough (I mainly reckon that going barefoot indoors allows any sweat etc to wear off, but while they don't get terribly smelly they do get painful cracks between the toes from time to time, which indicates some kind of infection on the skin).
I probably have a bath/shower a couple of times a week, but since that involves taking all my clothes off and then drying myself all over, and in addition requires a minimum time commitment which I rarely seem to have when either getting up or going to bed (both of which tend to take place at the last possible moment), it isn't a routine activity, but one I undertake as a luxury when I happen to feel like it. So far as I'm aware I don't suffer from body odour as a result (I haven't had any complaints); the main part of me that gets noticeably smelly is the armpits if I sweat, and I endeavour to dress appropriately and adjust my layers of clothing so that I *don't* sweat any more than I can help, while wearing cotton clothes so that if I do sweat it gets absorbed rather than breeding bacteria. The aforementioned wet flannel generally deals adequately with a day's worth of perspiration :-p
The other part of me that gets noticeably dirty is my neck, and that tends to reduce the wearability of my shirts to two days at the maximum. Possibly other areas pick up grime between baths too, but that evidently rubs off evenly all over!
And there is my hair, of course, but I do take the trouble to wash that in the sink from time to time because greasy hair annoys me more than dusty feet :-p