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Re: GBlist: Re: water usage



At 12:19 PM 9/23/97 -0400, you wrote:
>In a message dated 22/09/97  14:59:19, Chris wrote:
>
><< The average seems to be somewhere between 80 and 110 gallons per person 
> per day.  That's alot of water!
>  >>

and Matthew Hill replied:

>By way of comparison, the average use in England is around 150lts/person/day,
>which is 39.6 US gallons (conversion factor 3.785lts a gallon). <snip>
>What are you doing with the stuff ??  <snip>
>The latest washing machines (good ones)  use  about 55lts (14.5galls) for a
>full wash cycle.
>

A few factors we should remember:

1. Municipal average gpcd figures include nonresidential uses -- commercial,
industrial, system losses, etc.  If I'm remembering correctly, most of those
~100 gpcd figures were based on these total uses. If UK figures are based on
actual household use, let's compare apples to apples: the two households who
gave actual numbers to this list were both using about 33 US gallons per day
per person. (Granted, we're all relatively "green" here, but still.)

2. I could be way off-base here, but I would bet that a lot of the remaining
difference goes to landscape watering. Do Americans have bigger yards, on
average? Are they more addicted to lawns that look like golf courses? (yuck)
They are in my suburb. 

The rest of the difference probably goes to larger, less efficient
appliances. I can't find the exact figure, but I seem to remember than an
average US washer uses 40-50 gallons per complete wash cycle. If the average
family does 4-5 loads per week, that's a lot of water! Horizontal-axis
washers have been very difficult to find over here; I was delighted to see
that a new top-load, horizontal-axis washer is being introduced.

---Elena Westbrook, ELS
WordWright Communications
EWestbrook@topher.net

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