Excessive fresh water use comes at a cost to you and to the environment. Even areas of high rainfall, (such as the West Coast of the South Island), face the cost of filtering and supplying clean water. Areas such as Canterbury are facing even more issues due to the low rainfall.
Using less water saves you money. Your rates pay for maintaining and upgrading water and waste water services – if you use less, these costs go down. Councils spend about a third of their annual operating budgets delivering and disposing of water. The costs of upgrading or building new water management systems will rise in future.
And if we use less water, we protect the environment from the harmful effects of drawing clean water and disposing of waste water. Up to 2% of the water delivered to your home is used for drinking or cooking - the rest gets flushed into the waste water system. If we produce less waste water, we lower the risk of leaks or spills that can foul streams, rivers, lakes and beaches.
Fortunately there are many simple things that can reduce those financial and environmental costs.
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