Comments on: For the Future of Water Efficiency, Look to Australia

By: David McNichols

David McNichols — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 07:31:24 +0000

Hi All. Water usage per South Australian household was around 215 litres per day, about 2 years ago.This may have reduced somewhat. Although there is a S.A. Gov’t requirement for new homes to install a rainwater tank (1,000 ltres), this is “left up” to householders, by some builders. It may never be done. I believe a better size tank should be around 30,000 litres to make a real difference.I’ll be lobbying the government to suggest 10,000 as an interum measure. The raim water harvesting earthwork designs are almost unheard of here around Australia. Some very few enlightened councils have designed rain water cachement system on large scale . I know of none using street to curbside capture etc. I’ve seen no carpark designs capturing storing using rainwater to date. I’ll be flat out like a lizard drinking, promoting Brad’s system around Australia. Ciao.

By: Rainwater recycling

Rainwater recycling — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 16:29:11 +0000

You can also learn a lot from several European countries. Germany has been into recycling rainwater for many years, with tax incentives for storing it.
In the UK, we assume 140 litres per person per day, which may be conservative. Under a voluntary scheme called Code for Sustainable Homes, the first target is to reduce this to 105 lpppd, which is really only practical if you are using rainwater for flushing toilets.
Slowly we are moving in the right direction.

By: Simon Dominguez

Simon Dominguez — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:55:31 +0000

While many parts of the US are in drought, it is still possible to buy water from ajoining states. In Australia, the whole continent has been in drought for about 10 years which has forced the public to rescue the rain water in rain barrels and cisterns to supply water for irrigation, car washing and flushing toilets. American’s need to learn from the lessons that have been forced upon Australians and start capturing their rainwater now as the shortage of good clean drinking water will only get worse as climate change and increased population put even more pressure on our limited water supplies. There is no need to use city water (which is perfectly accepatble to drink) to water our plants or flush our toilets. Rainwater is a perfect solution for these no potable water needs.