By the numbers: Household water
by Sarah Bartlett

By the numbers: Household water

Less than 1% of the Earth's water is available for our consumption. The rest is sea water or locked up in polar ice caps.

Water use in the home Outdoors 44% Kitchen 8% Laundry 13% Toilet 15% Bathroom 20%

Only 11% of the water consumed by households in 2004-5 was supplied by rainwater tanks, dams or bore water.

In 2004-2005, NSW was the biggest water user, guzzling 32% of the national total. But it has 33% of the population.

It takes almost 568 litres of water to make a loaf of bread, 5,000 litres to produce 1kg of rice, and 55,000 litres to produce 1kg of beef.

Australia is the driest inhabited continent on Earth.
 

A leaking tap that drips once every second, wastes 30 litres of water daily.

In 2004-2005, Australians used 18767,000,000,000 litres of water.

 

National water consumption Agriculture 65% Households 11% Water utilities 11% Electricity and gas production 1% Manufacturing 3% Mining 3% Industry 6%

Production of one kilowatt-hour of electricity requires 140 litres of water for fossil fuel power plants and 205 litres for nuclear power plants.

 

Originally published in G The Green Lifestyle Magazine May/June 2007