The Government White Paper, 'Water for Life', released this week, recognises that water is one of our most valuable resources and calls on everyone to treat it as such. It advocates such steps as installing water butts in gardens to collect rainwater, converting toilets to dual flush and addressing domestic leaks. Sadly I didn't see any mention of the promotion of grey water flushing systems etc. but I suppose it's still early days for these yet.

The document also explains how Government will incentivise water efficiency measures and sets out how voluntary water efficiency labelling will be encouraged, so customers are able to choose more efficient products.

I feel that because this valuable resource has always been 'on tap', the average consumer tends not to worry about wasting it, so there is much ground to be gained here.

Having seen though, how, with rising utility prices, we are insulating our houses, having the heating on less, lowering the temperature on our thermostats, turning off lights when they would normally have been left on - and look how deserted our roads are compared with a couple of years ago! - cost seems to be the biggest influencer when it comes to usage.

This industry offers some fantastic products designed to save water and of course educating consumers about why they should choose these over more wasteful products should be a priority. The Bathroom Manufacturers Association's Yvonne Orgill warns below, in Soapbox, that we must convince Government that everyone within the industry is serious about water efficiency if we are to avoid expensive and cumbersome regulation and I couldn't agree more.  She makes some good points so make sure you read what she has to say.

The Government confesses that it wants to improve its understanding of what motivates individuals to make the best use of water and what might be preventing them from doing so. I think it will save a great deal of time and money spent on research by pushing harder for the rollout of water meters throughout the UK.

The products are there; we just have to be forced to use them by knowing that we'll have to pay for every drop of water we use!

Yours,