Environment

Exercise 1

Europeans use approximately 210 liters of water per person each day. Family size plays a large role in this, as single households use far more water. Try to find out how many liters of water are used for the various activities in the home by clicking on your estimate.

Saving water, for example by turning off the tap while brushing your teeth, was probably taught to you in kindergarten. As a consequence it has established itself in our consciousness as a duty, however, „it neither helps the children in Africa nor the environment, in fact it leads to pipe blockages.“ Pierre-Christian Fink wrote an article in the newspaper „Die Zeit“ on this misunderstood environmental consciousness. While many European countries are usually very rich in water, there is little of it on the Horn of Africa and as it is still not possible to transport water from one continent to another, every region is reliant on its own water resources.

The German population now saves water so effectively that the water pipes are no longer well washed through and as a result faeces and germs collect in them. However, savings are also made for economic reasons as the water used is billed per cubic meter. Water is saved so easily because we do not have to restrict our lifestyle: „As such a kind of ecological trade off has arisen: we happily sin through the use of oil, the production of CO2 and the use of power – then we rectify all this through the fanatical saving of water.“

The throughflow in the pipes could be made possible by introducing a flat rate for water, as people would then certainly use more water again. A German water company argued in this context that this would make sense, but by doing this they would simultaneously signal to the customers that they need not use water conservatively and this carefree attitude would then be transferred to other resources.

• How do you see this information? Does the behaviour described fit your own personal water use? Can you understand the logic of the water company?

Sources

http://www.wvsb.at/Wasserverbrauch.htm
http://www.wasserwerk.at/home/alles-ueber-wasser/verbrauch
http://www.zeit.de/2012/14/Wasserversorgung