31% and falling

[deird_lj]

You know your country's in drought when the government starts handing out free egg-timers for everyone to use in the shower...

Comments

From Laney

[(Anonymous)]

Oooh, are they any good? How do you get them?

[deird1]

Letterbox drops.

Little mini ones with "Our Water, Our Future" written on them, and those sticky things on the back for attaching them to the shower wall...

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Hmm - I'm not sure whether to be impressed by them or simply amused.

Perhaps our cat can come and visit you? He is complaining that the damp weather we offer him outdoors is not to his specifications.

[deird1]

Woo! Free cat! Send him over!

Oddly enough, we've been getting nothing but rain every day for a couple of weeks. It's just not nearly enough to combat what's going to happen in February...

[debris4spike]

I shall drain some of the water off DJ's field and send it over! A drout is something we don't have to worry about here - LOL

[deird1]

Wow... Water just... lying around? In fields?

*happy sigh just picturing it*

[shapinglight]

Yikes!

[deird1]

*nods grimly*

[taiba.livejournal.com]

I still know nothing about how they're regulating the amount of water that industry uses.

They're so focused on households and guilt-tripping the average person, they don't even mention other, larger water-saving efforts.

It gets a bit irritating after a while.

[deird1]

Uh-huh. It's got to the point where, every time I see anyone from the government discussing water, I just want to scream "BUILD A NEW DAM YOU BASTARDS!"

Instead, I just avoid the topic as much as possible...

[damostaranth.livejournal.com]

I can agree with that - Working in the food industry, I watch far too often as people just throw water around to clean things because it's a) easier and b) fun, when they could be using about a third to a fifth as much for the same effect, if they just thought about it for five seconds beforehand.

I like to think I've pushed most people to at least TRY and save water, but...

There's nothing like hearing people say "Oh it's okay, we're a food industry, they can't restrict our water!"

Um, yeah, but that doesn't change the fact that you're wasting kilolitres of water a week which could be used for crazy things like drinking...

[sarian71]

Well, that's exotic! At least when looking from the point of view of a person living in 'The Land of the Thousand Lakes'... :)

[deird1]

Yep. This is a land where we have former lakes that are now growing trees in the bottom of them.

(Mind you, we're not nearly as bad as up in the Northern Territory. They have a yearly boat race along the river where they cut the bottoms out of the boats, pick them up, and run along the river bed. And that's been happening since before the drought...)

[sarian71]

"they cut the bottoms out of the boats, pick them up, and run along the river bed."

LOL!

[immer-am-lesen.livejournal.com]

mawww, I wanna free timer too! :-(
They don't do those in country areas...maybe they think we're waterwise already?
I'm still stunned that all the previous owners here for twenty years, never once had a watertank, choosing to live off townwater....crazy.
But our three pretties are almost full now, yay!! Such a nice thing to have as a safety. Why every property isn't required to have at least two, I'll never know...
Government should spend monies on a tank for every. single. house.
And use stormwater. etc. Sigh.

[deird1]

Definitely. The fact that the Burnley tunnel was (is?) flushing fresh water through it to keep the thing sealed is just appalling.

[klme.livejournal.com]

I think they recycle from the Yarra now. I think so...

[klme.livejournal.com]

I want one too!
I am so sick of hearing "We've had lots of rain...but not in the catchment areas" on the news.
Do these so called catchment areas EVER get any rain?
Do we need, I don't know, a different catchment area???

I remember going on honeymoon to the Cook Islands, and they would just LEAVE HOSES RUNNING CONSTANTLY.
Water just gushing away, and no-one paying any attention, except for the Australians, who were edging about nervously, all of us thinking 'Turn it off! What a waste!'

[deird1]

I know!

I remember, in high school, using up water all over the place, and KEEPING TAPS RUNNING. I can't believe that was only 10 years ago...

From Laney

[(Anonymous)]

A few years ago I read an article where the guy said he'd come up with a brilliant new tourism idea.
He figured that when people want to have an event like a wedding, where they want to ensure that it doesn't rain, they could clearly come and do this... in the catchment area!
Because every time it rained, he'd turn on the news and they'd talk about all the rain that had fallen and say, "Of course, unfortunately this won't help the water crisis because none of the rain fell in the catchment area."
He wondered why the catchment area had been built in what was obviously the only place it never rained...

(...did we even know what a catchment area was until a few years ago?)

(...did you know that Americans apparently have never heard of dual-flush toilets? Some celeb was out here on the radio asking what on earth they were for. He thought we'd find it really funny and unnecessary, I think - he was a little surprised when Hamish and Andy didn't treat it as a massive joke.
I don't remember any in Britain either - I tihink it may be an Aussie invention.)

[dreamincolor.livejournal.com]

How strange..

[deird1]

That's Australia for you...

[immer-am-lesen.livejournal.com]

flush water thru to keep it from leaking.....riiiiight.
How does this work? I'm no engineer so it seems odd to me...

[immer-am-lesen.livejournal.com]

oh, and the in-laws got me a cute little yellow shower timer, as part of a giant bag-o-goodies :-D
Yay!