Water industry is focus of white paper

How our water and sewerage services are organised is the subject of a Defra white paper collecting opinions until November 30th.

Defra are asking groups and individuals to complete a short on-line form giving their views about water supplies, regulation and conservation.

June 2011 is when results will be published of the paper, launched after the spending review called for department restructuring.

The likely reforms center around three areas, namely reducing regulation by meters and competition, how to manage future supplies and keeping the bills at satisfactory levels.

On the subject of water, fresh water supply has moved to the top of the agenda at the round the table discussions for all the major countries' leaders.

For example, the United Nations world water day has Urban Water Management for its focus in 2010.

At the UN Global Compact summit held in June 2010 New York, the main subjects were business transparency and world fresh water.

The popular journal National Geographic devoted a special issue in April to Water, Our Thirsty World. Looking at the world's increasing population with agriculture and industry expanding, there is greater water demand and fresh water is scarcer.

“Three hundred million people now get their water from the sea or from brackish groundwater that is too salty to drink. That's double the number a decade ago,” wrote the archeologist and journalist Karen E Lange

"With 83 million more people on earth each year, water demand will keep going up unless we change how we use it," wrote the National Geographic.

Back in the UK, an application to help the millions without direct access to drinking water won a James Dyson Award.

Timothy Whitehead designed a UV sterilisation water bottle that filters particles using a double sided container and a plunger before sterilising the water with a wind-up ultra violet light system.

The Pure bottle purifies water in two minutes removing reliance upon iodine and chlorine tablets and cutting down the 30 minutes for the tablets to take effect.

Water and its availability and conservation is reported daily through such celebrities as the environmentalist Donnachadh McCarthy. He was credited in the Guardian for reducing his water consumption to around 20 litres a day, at least one fifth of the UK average.

“As McCarthy pointed out, it is only recently that we have expected people to bathe or shower every day. 'When I was a kid,' he said, 'the normal thing was to bathe once a week,” the Guardian wrote.

Within industries moves towards self sufficiency in water is the issue of the day. Marshalls the landscape materials suppliers are developing manufacturing plants that can operate without mains water supplies.

The Telegraph followed PepsiCo, the owners of Walkers crisps who are reportedly trialling self-sufficient systems. Walkers are collecting steam when cooking and using this for washing, peeling and slicing the potatoes.

In terms of infrastructure Britain is typical of many Western nations in that pipe work is now a century old and so water losses are often more than 10 per cent.

This summer brought a hosepipe ban in the North West of England with the suppliers United Utilities typically losing 23 per cent of water before it reached its destination.

Current surveys and white papers merely reflect a much wider issue and concern. Reducing the water footprint of products and the quantity of water we consume, the efficient water distribution and storage remain key to the viability of the British water and sewarage utilities.