Precious elixir: where's the plug?

Alina Siegfried with some of the tools of the challenge. Photo supplied.

Alina Siegfried had a long shower yesterday. It was something she had been looking forward to.

For all the profligacy that might have involved, the Wellington woman had earned it. For the past month - the month of March - she's been living on 25 litres of a water a day.

Big deal? Well, it's probably a fair effort. The average Wellingtonian uses about 230 litres in their domestic daily life (the Dunedin City Council estimate is between 180 and 250 litres of water per person each day, not including garden watering).

A 10-minute shower can easily burn through a third of that, with low-flow shower heads pouring out about six litres of water a minute and older-style versions 15 or more. Then there's flushing the toilet (up to 20 litres) and washing hands, putting a load or two of washing through the machine, dishes, cooking, cups of tea. It all adds up.

Ms Siegfried's effort was part of the Water Conservation Challenge, which has been running for a few years now. It was initiated by a Canadian man and coincides with the United Nation's World Water Day, which was March 22.

Ms Siegfried first became involved in the event when working on water issues for a non-governmental organisation in Canada, a country she concedes probably has more to be immediately concerned about when it comes to water conservation. The UN's focus is on urban areas in the developing world.

But New Zealanders need not be complacent, she says.

"I have been making the connection here that our streams and rivers are getting more and more polluted at the moment. The more water that's in there to basically dilute those pollutants the better. And also I make the point that it takes a considerable amount of energy to pump and treat that water and bring it into our homes, so there's really no need to be wasteful with it.

"A lot of our typical Kiwi swimming holes have do-not-swim signs popping up everywhere. There's a lot of algal growth in our rivers."

The likes of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, among others, has made similar points in recent times.

"It is an interesting one, because we are not really, really short of water in New Zealand, but in saying that, people, especially in Wellington, have the misconception that if it is raining then there is plenty of water but of course most of that water is directed straight into stormwater systems and ends up in the harbour."

Unless people take some care with water, local councils must spend large sums on infrastructure to meet demand.

"The other point to be made is that with climate change ramping up the way it is, we are going to see more extreme weather systems. We are going to see more floods, more droughts, more storms coming through and the water supply won't necessarily be consistent," Ms Siegfried says.

There is another, broader issue.

"It is a fundamental value. We are all actually made of water and it is something that's absolutely taken for granted, as are many things in our Western lifestyle. You go and turn on an electric light switch and you know that electricity is going to be there, but you don't ever make the connection of how that came to be. So I guess this could be seen as a model for other things, and an indication of how we take many of our modern luxuries for granted."