Watering Down The Effort Of Saving

So, back in October the UN Population Division announced that they expected the global human population to top 7 billion before the end of the month, raising the usual questions about the finite resources with which we have to support ourselves. The very next week was deemed to be ‘Energy Saving Week 2011’ by the UKs Energy Saving Trust. Energy is clearly a relevant topic to modern, Western societies and just about anybody trying to make ends meet in the less than forgiving economic climate which surrounds us.

While energy saving can sometimes be construed as a bit wishy-washy, tree-huggy, and (let’s face it) impractical, the reality of energy saving is really no different than that of buying a more fuel efficient car or opting to properly insulate your loft. The key is not using more of a resource, and therefore not spending more money, than you actually need to.

One of the most overlooked and least considered aspects of household energy wastage is water. Now, most of us know that showers use less water than baths, and that collecting rainwater in a water butt for use on your garden is a much more sensible and responsible way to do things. Few of us consider the money which is literally going down the plug hole as we wash our hands, brush our teeth, or rinse a coffee mug. The issue here is not that we should all stop washing our hands and brushing our teeth, only a madman would suggest that. The issue is that most of the water coming out of the tap goes straight down the drain and never even touches our hands, toothbrush, mug, etc. This is often due to taps either being turned on fully without necessity, left on continuously, or both.

We are all human. None of us are perfect. The path of every life is strewn with the wreckage of best intentions. The best way to make a positive, permanent, and effective change is to take the effort and thought out of it. Our lives are busy. We are all trying to juggle too many balls at once. The last thing any of us have the time to consider is whether we could be using a little less water when we rinse a plate or wash our hands.

Thankfully, technology has once again come to our rescue. With modern tap brands such as Carron Phoenix and Bluci including more water efficient and water saving taps in their ranges, it is now easier than ever to save water and money with little or no effort.

Consumers are always going to be more motivated by saving money than saving the planet. This is just human nature. Most people will pay more attention to the boil on their own neck than to the millions dying each year in Africa from a simple lack of food and clean drinking water. The psychologists can argue all they want, but I think a lot of this is to do with having some sense of actually having the power to make a difference.

Around 40% of UK households have water meters, and this number is expected to rise dramatically in the next 10 years. This means that as more and more households find themselves paying only for the water that they actually use, more of them are likely to become interested in finding ways to reduce their own water consumption, and therefore their water bill.

As is the way with these things, only time will tell how long it takes British households to buy-in to the water saving habit. But many leading tap manufacturers are getting ready for when they do. This should give hope to anybody out there still hoping to save the planet.

A Watched Pot Never Boils

I don’t know about you, but I tend to get through a lot of tea and coffee in a day. This means that I have spent an awful lot of my life waiting for kettles to boil, getting distracted, wandering off, remembering that I was making a drink, heading back to the kitchen, and having to re-boil the kettle as the water had cooled (repeat).

Last Christmas my mum gave my wife and I a one cup, boil-on-demand, hot water dispenser. It was very well received. You see the problem with boiling a kettle to make a hot drink, even if you only boil it once, is that you always have to heat more water than you are going to use. This is a horribly inefficient way to do things. The one cup dispenser solves this problem. You still have to wait, but you never heat more water than you need.

A couple of months after receiving this gift I joined the team at sinks-taps.com. On my first day I was shown around the building, introduced to my new colleagues, informed of where all of the emergency exits were located, and shown the kitchen. It was in the kitchen that I first encountered an instant hot water dispenser. It was an InSinkErator HC-1100. This little beauty could provide an instant flow of filtered water, heated to 98°C at a rate of up to 100 cups an hour. Not a kettle in sight, no waiting, no waste. In my mind, this was the next best thing to having a bottomless cup of tea/coffee.

Considering the fact that the United Kingdom consumes more tea per capita than any other country in the world, the amount of time and energy that could be saved by replacing a significant proportion of the country’s kettles with instant hot water dispensers would be immense. Add to this the fact that these taps can not only be used to make drinks - they can also be used in cooking, cleaning, literally everything that you would use a regular kettle for - and you realise the potential time and energy saving is even greater.

New models and designs are being brought out all of the time, including Franke’s new Minerva 3-in-1 Kettle Tap which was announced this year. It’s not hard to imagine a day when none of us have to participate in that most tedious of tasks: waiting for the kettle to boil.

Right, all this talk of hot drinks has made me thirsty. I’m off to make a cuppa. It won’t take long.

The Rubbish about Waste Disposal Units

I’ll be honest, when I first joined sinks-taps.com earlier this year, I considered waste disposal units to be those horrible death traps from Hollywood movies. The sleeping mutilator, lurking under the kitchen sink. Just waiting for someone to drop their wedding ring/watch/front door key into, and be forced to venture a tentative hand, wrist, arm, into the murky, unseen depths, and then… “Aaargh!”

This was the understanding with which I approached waste disposal units for most of my life. Even last year, when visiting friends in Los Angeles, I was fascinated by their kitchen waste disposer. So much so that I was always conscious of it being there, and took extra care not to drop anything into the sink that might give me cause to go fishing around in the old limb-mangler.

I have since learned that this, as some of you may already be aware, was nonsense. A standard, under-sink waste disposal unit is not particularly dangerous. In fact, they don’t even contain blades.



I also harboured other reservations regarding waste disposal units, which I had carried with me without ever bothering to find out whether or not they were actually true.
The list included:
• “They are not environmentally friendly”
• “They are noisy”
• “They are expensive”

Having since taken the time to actually investigate these matters, it turns out that I was wrong on every single point:

• Environment: Second only to composting, waste disposal units are one of the most environmentally friendly ways to deal with household food waste. With best estimates indicating that UK households send more than three quarters of their food waste to landfill sites, it is easy to see that waste disposal units are a welcome alternative.

• Noise: Waste disposal units do not create very much noise at all, and certainly not as much as some common kitchen appliances, such as food processors or washing machines. Plus, since waste disposers do what they do so quickly, any noise produced only occurs for a very brief moment.

• Cost: With waste disposal units available from as little as £79 for the InSinkErator ISE45, cost really doesn’t have to be any sort of barrier.

In Summary: Waste disposal units are not dangerous, un-eco-friendly, noisy or expensive. They are our friends. Instead of pulling our hands back from those imaginary blades, we should reach out and hug/install one.