Water Industry News

Save Our Streams Campaign Gets Backing

Affinity Water has just launched its Save Our Streams campaign, which is designed to help everyone to save water and do their bit to look after our natural resources.

 

Under this new campaign, residential users can get advice about steps they can take to reduce their water consumption. However, it’s not just residential users that could benefit from making small changes to decrease the amount of water they get through.

 

Businesses can also benefit both in terms of their environmental impact and their water bills by taking the time to compare business water suppliers and carrying out an audit of the amount of water they use as part of their day-to-day activities to see if there are any easy changes they could make.

 

Affinity Water recently shared the thoughts of some leading opinion formers who are backing the Save Our Streams campaign and supporting the idea of bringing greater awareness to our water usage habits.

 

Speaking on his podcast, chair of the River Chess Association Paul Jennings said that many people have a renewed appreciation for their rivers and streams following the pandemic, and therefore that there is a greater desire to protect them.

 

“There is now a greater understanding of the impact we all have on our rivers which wasn’t the case when our association started out. If we can combine our efforts and work with water companies, I think we will be able to see a marked improvement,” he stated.

 

Mr Jennings also offered his listeners some tips on how they could start to reduce their water use. Among his top pieces of advice is to get a water butt for the garden that can fill up over the wetter, winter months and then provide water to prevent a huge spike in demand during the summer.

 

Labour MP for Pontypridd Alex Davies-Jones, who co-chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Water, also announced her support of the Save Our Streams campaign. She added that she understands the complexity of the issue, with many communities having to deal with flooding at certain times of the year while being told to save water.

 

“Getting that education and understanding to people of exactly why this is happening is important. Just because we have an abundance of storm and flooding water does not mean that we have an infinite resource of clean drinking water for people to use,” Ms Davies-Jones added.

 

She is particularly supportive of schemes that make better use of grey water in homes, as well as the use of sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS), which have been implemented to great effect in other parts of the world.

 

Earlier this month, we revealed how water companies are increasingly turning to technology to help them fix issues within the country’s water infrastructure and reduce leakage as much as possible.

 

For example, United Utilities is installing sensors throughout its pipe network to detect leaks, while Yorkshire Water is piloting a smart water network in its area. This involves using pressure loggers, acoustic loggers and flow meters to help the company detect leaks and fix them more quickly.