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Friday, February 24, 2012

Adjusting Drinking Water Faucets

By Joy Jackson


It is not news that water wastage across the world is unnecessarily high. And while some countries are literally drought stricken, other countries take their water supplies for granted. It is easy to take water for granted, as it flows so freely out of the tap. We forget that in some countries, such as those in the third world, water is a luxury item, and one that people may have to walk miles for to carry back in the dust and heat.

Each year, thousands upon thousands of gallons of water go to waste via leaky drinking water faucets, taps and pipes, excess showering, laundry, and dishwashing use. It is estimated that U.S citizens use approximately 205 billion gallons of water daily for household, industrial and agricultural uses. This is an awful lot of water! Which percentages could all be reduced by making a few small changes around the home?

It is important to avoid having leaky taps around the home, as a leaking drinking water faucet could lose up to 4000 gallons of water per year. There are many water saving devices now on the market designed to reduce water pressure and flow and hence, the amount of water used. Most of these are inexpensive and easy to install. Low flow faucet aerators are cheap and easy to install, and work by reducing the water flow and increasing water pressure, then mixing air with the water as it comes out of the tap.

Home options include boiling water, adding iodine and chlorine to the water, de-chlorination and filtration systems such as reverse osmosis systems.A traditional faucet will use around 5 - 15 gallons of water a minute, whereas an aerated faucet reduces it to around 3 gallons per minute. And when buying drinking water faucets, look for ones that flow at or around 2.75 gallons per minute. These can save huge amounts of water each year.

However, this is not an accurate perception as many diseases and additions to the water cannot be affected by boiling and can only be removed by a proper filtration process.As the world gets hotter, more and more countries are going into drought, and water wastage is still unnecessarily high. If we could all try to make a few small changes, from adjusting our drinking water faucets, turning the tap off when we clean out teeth and washing our car on the lawn, the amount of water wasted each year would drop considerably. And it's important that we strive to pass these views on to our children, as it's they who will determine the future of the world in years to come.




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