Australia’s Future Far From Blue As Water Restrictions Lift

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Smart Approved WaterMark urges Australians to educate themselves to make their future blue with better water efficiency

New research reveals two-thirds of Australians agree they could save more water.
Almost half of Australians don’t think about where their tap water comes from.

As the country stands in the aftermath of drought and fires, shocking new research reveals that two-thirds of Australians could save more water (63%) and would ‘freak out’ if their taps stopped flowing (69%). Yet, with more Aussies at home as a result of self-isolation, the nation is encouraged to become more mindful for their water usage and household water efficiency.

Smart Approved WaterMark (SAWM) is the one-stop shop for water efficiency in Australia. Their program delivers a range of educational, interactive water-saving resources for councils and water utilities to take to communities about saving water around the home and garden. SAWM also provide Smart Water Audit’s for businesses to find immediate and long-term water saving solutions along with achieving big savings in their bills.

Their new report, Australia’s Relationship with Water, reveals concerning statistics, with a staggering 45% of Australians not thinking about where their water comes from. This comes as one in four (26%) haven’t discussed saving water with their children and over half (55%) admit they are addicted to turning on the tap.

Representative of the Australian population, SAWM sent the survey and set-up the ethnographies with subjects that were ‘on the grid’ for water, for example, Australians who have access to treated and piped water supplied by their local service provider and not those reliant on bores or rainwater tanks.

Despite relying on their local service provider for water supply, surprising results found one third (36%) of the respondents don’t know where the water comes from and a further 55% don’t know their local water catchment area.

Further research reveals that while everyone is concerned about the environment, this care rarely extends to issues relating to water, such as droughts, water shortages or dam levels. This is only set to worsen with the report revealing that only 14% of Gen Z have a high-water literacy, compared to two-thirds (65%) of Baby Boomers.

Despite 73% of Baby Boomers and 77% of Gen X saying they share water information with their children, this has reduced considerably with each of the younger generations. This has resulted in both, them and their children, being far more likely to take water for granted.

While Gen Y are environmentally conscious regarding climate change and carbon emissions, they admit to leaving the tap on and say they feel stressed about the amount of water used in the garden. Further Gen Y respondents agreed that while they ‘know how to save water’, they ‘find it hard’.

CEO of Smart Approved WaterMark, Chris Philpot commented on Australia’s water literacy level, “Water literacy is all about knowing how water gets to your home, including how its treated and pumped and where it goes when you flush the toilet,

“Unfortunately, we found that Australia’s water literacy is low and the last time Australians learnt anything about water was in high school,” said Chris.

In fact, three quarters (71%) of Gen Z use longer showers to ‘relax’, while one in two (47%) feel that saving water is too inconvenient. While, a shocking 43% don’t realise water down the drain is wasted.

With water shortages set to be a continuing problem for Australia, despite recent heavy rainfall, improved understanding of the water cycle is essential. “Blue House is a fun interactive experience that provides Australians with top water saving tips and products for your home, in a fun and easy to explore way,” said Chris.

Smart Approved WaterMark urges Australians to educate themselves to ensure their future is blue with water saving tips accessible through the online interactive tool, Blue House.


Follow Smart WaterMark on FacebookTwitter or Instagram.  Read more about our relationship with water https://www.smartwatermark.org/research/australias-relationship-water/

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