Don’t waste a drop
SOMETIMES it’s the things that are most important, all around us and part of our everyday lives, that we most take for granted. Water is one of these things.
TasWater senior engineer (asset strategy) Rebecca Sayles says because water is so readily accessible to us, we forget it is a valuable and vulnerable resource.
That’s why over the past week — National Water Week — TasWater has been encouraging all of us to rethink our interactions with water at every stage of the urban water cycle.
“It is easy to take water for granted and National Water Week is a great opportunity to remind ourselves that access to clean water is hugely important to every aspect of our lives and the success of our communities,” Ms Sayles said.
“Water has such broad ranging value — it supports the health of our population, provides for our natural habitats, drives our industries and economy and provides recreational and cultural value.”
This year’s theme for National Water Week was “Water for me, Water for all” and Ms Sayles says it encourages communities and young people to think about how we use water.
“Using water wisely is one of the ways we can all take action to protect this precious resource and our water environment so that future generations can continue to enjoy the benefits that we do.”
TasWater provides drinking water to its customers by extracting water from rivers, reservoirs and groundwater, treating it to make it safe and delivering it to customers’ taps.
The company then collects and treats used water so that it can be safely returned to the environment or recycled for irrigation.
“There are many ways that each and every one of us can make a positive impact on protecting the value of this resource,” Ms Sayles said. “We can be mindful of how our actions could impact the quality of our water supplies when taking advantage of our recreational dam sites or when bushwalking in drinking water catchments.
“We can use water wisely in our homes and gardens to reduce demand on our water resources and we can all help to make returning used water safely back to the environment easier and help to prevent sewage overflows to the environment by not flushing items such as wet wipes, cotton buds and nappies.”