Surrey expert: "Water companies persist in communicating about the need to save water in ways that fail to resonate with people"
An expert from the University of Surrey says water companies need to change how they send water saving messages
As we continue to endure the 5th heatwave of the year, and with the drought raging on, a local expert says water companies need to change how they send water saving messages
Benjamin Gardner is the co-lead of the University of Surrey’s Water Efficiency lab
He says the main issue is people not having a perception of how much water they use per day
"Discussing how many litres – or Olympic-sized swimming pools - can be saved will have limited impact, because people do not think about water-use activities in this way.
We need to give information that's much more targeted to how people think about water and what's important to them individually"
The average person in the UK uses around 130 litres of water each day, however this can be underestimated by up to 80%
Ben says getting this across could help people realise the pressing need for everyone to do their bit
"It's going to be useful for people to know how much water they use in order to think about reducing it because there are all these messages that tell people about how many litres they can save but if people think they're not using many litres as is, then they might just think well that's for other people.
I think giving people more accurate information is going to be a key part of solving the problem because it gives someone a reliable baseline."
Ben told us about how he thinks the messages could look
I think the way I would phrase it would be to point out, for example, that the water that goes down your sink when you finish washing up however many litres that is, that could easily be used to water your plants, for example.
So it's, you know, reusing water. There's also very simple messaging to be put out around taking shorter showers a lot of the messaging has been around, here are small things that you can do that can make a difference.
But something like, for example, turning off the tap when you're brushing your teeth, it's not going to save as much water as turning off a high-powered shower or shortening the amount of time you spend in a high-powered shower."