Water consumption

[Grelinette]

This year there was no shortage of water in France, but the summer ended, here is an interesting observation (subject and comments from a citizen blog in my town in the PACA region):

"The summer season is coming to an end and many citizens will have to prepare the swimming pools for the winter and empty them. Where can we empty a few tens of m3?
A reader has noticed that one of his neighbors is emptying on the public highway and wonders if this is normal. I asked the question to the deputy delegate for town planning, urban development… here is his answer.

According to the Town Planning Department and the Technical Services of the Town Hall, it seems that this operation can be done either by spreading on its own land, or by rain evacuation. It is advisable to empty the swimming pools in small steps to avoid flooding… the neighbors and not to send the pluvial on days of heavy rain… so as not to submerge the network. "

comments:
It is true that each year, at the end of summer, some owners completely empty their swimming pool before winter. For others, those who have kept their pond full all winter, the vacuum in general in the spring before putting it back in water before the beautiful summer days. In one case, as in the other, given the number of swimming pools in our region (see the pictures googlemaps), hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of “clean” water are discharged into nature or onto public roads ; this is easily seen on the road that runs alongside properties with a swimming pool.

It is all the more paradoxical that our region is regularly concerned by episodes of drought, and that this observation of “wasting” of water is in contradiction with certain measures of Sustainable Development which advise us to reduce our water consumption by attaching a mixer-aerator to our taps…

But what to do ?

Perhaps, as with electricity, being able to reinject this pool water into the network!

Ideas ?…
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In connection with this subject, it should be noted that the PACA region is not only one of the French regions which consumes the most water overall, but also that which has one of the highest consumption per inhabitant. (source: http://www.ecodomisons.fr/l-eau/la-cons ... C3%A9gion/ )

It would be interesting to know if the per capita water consumption figures take into account the volumes of water that fill the pools.

Other interesting figures given by the WHO:
water consumption for a household is distributed as follows:

39% for baths and showers;
20% for toilets;
12% for linen;
10% for dishes;
6% for food preparation;
6% for various domestic uses;
6% for washing the car and watering the garden;
1% for drinking water.

Of the 243 liters of drinking water that a French person consumes per day, only 1% (2,4l) is drunk, and bottles of mineral water are not counted!

[jlt22]

I live in Brittany and for 2 people, we consume good year, bad year, 60 to 65 m3 of water per year.

We do not have swimming pools, drink only tap water and water the garden very little and only with a watering can.

We only take showers, not bathtubs.
Our taps are with flow limiter and equipped with aerator.

We are therefore very far from the WHO assessments. I think there is an error in the figure of 243 liters / day / person.

Very many families less attentive than me are far from having this result.

[bamboo]

[b] Perhaps, as with electricity, being able to reinject this pool water into the network!

Pool water is a waste, but it is not clean at all.
She received all kinds of visits (human, animal, plant), underwent treatments for the comfort of the bather (Chlorine).
It is therefore not suitable for consumption and cannot be injected as it is into the network.

It could be used in flushing toilets, but this would require 2 water systems in the accommodation.

[dirk pitt]

So we are very far from the WHO assessments. I think there is an error in the figure of 243 liters / day / person.

this figure does not come from the WHO and seems indeed wrong.
the current average (down) is rather around 150 to 160l / d / person in France
Be careful, you shouldn't just count what you consume at home: you wash your hands and you also go to the toilet at the office, at the restaurant, etc.

[Did67]

It all depends on how you count!

- on the meter?
- at the station ?

There is a high percentage (around 30%? I believe) of losses on the network.

So if we divide the amount of water put in by the distributors, we find a much higher figure than if we average the meters ...

[Grelinette]

In fact, it doesn't matter how it is calculated and whether the water is drunk, used for showering, washing your hands, your car or watering your geraniums ...

The subject of knowing what to do with huge volumes of water from empty swimming pools is concrete and will in any case arise with more rigor and acuity in the future, especially in the French (and European) regions where,

- on the one hand, saving water is a crucial and recurring point,
- and on the other hand, the density of the pools is the most important.

(this is 2 points increasing identically due to the hot climate!)

In times of drought and water restriction, it is difficult to explain to a citizen that he cannot water his garden or wash his car when his neighbor has filled a 100 m3 pool and that he must add water due to evaporation!

Without wanting to sue the owners of swimming pools who do not have, even if they wanted to, a simple way to recycle their pool water, in all objectivity, it is singular to emphasize thatthere is a large gap between the small water savings that the "Agendas-21" recommend us to do at the individual level (installation of a mixer), and the large volumes of swimming pool water which are discharged into nature (water generally coming from the drinking water network).

We can nevertheless think of a solution to recycle this "relatively clean" water.

Perhaps a portable filtration micro-station with filters, UV lamps, etc. (made available by the municipality or the department) that pool owners could use to put this water back into a secondary water network (sprinklers, toilets , ...) when they empty their pool?…

[dirk pitt]

if the water were more expensive, there would be fewer swimming pools .....
it's a bit provocative but it works.
the average price of water in France is around € 4 per 1000L, I find it low.
you do stuff with 1000L of water if you take a little care.

[izentrop]

Pool water is a waste, but it is not clean at all.
She received all kinds of visits (human, animal, plant), underwent treatments for the comfort of the bather (Chlorine).

After a while in the sun, the chlorine evaporates.
We should be able to spread it on our land without consequence, right?

Yaka use biodegradable products, like any self-respecting econologist

[elephant]

jr22 said:

an error in the figure of 243 liters / day

I want, my nephew! My average is 120 l / day for two, including detergents and dishwasher. Number to double if we take into account the hunts ensured by the tank (but if we made them with distribution water, we would be more careful)

of course, no bath. In the morning, I consume 24 liters (because of the wait for hot water and the beard) and my wife 18.

[Grelinette]

I think it is a mistake to direct this debate on the details of individual behavior and to remain on the lookout for more or less precise overall figures. (Besides, it would be interesting to know the difference in water consumption per household, between those who have a pool and those who do not ...).

WATER is today presented as "a challenge of tomorrow and a cross-cutting issue for health, environmental protection, food security, education, energy, economic development and regional planning. "(source: government website).


The question is therefore not whether we can consume less water individually or per household according to their behavior, each setting their limits of economy and effort according to their values, their pleasures and their means, or if we must decrease the number of pools by a higher water price, but think about a fact:

Our comfort society authorizes (even encourages) individual leisure activities, such as swimming pools, at the origin of a very large consumption of drinking water for pleasure, then the wasteful evacuation of this water (the word " waste "not being adapted because the water was used), whereas in parallel daily recommendations push us to save a few tens of liters of water per year. It is this dissonance that bothers me, yet there is a swimming pool in my house! ...

It is not possible to solve the "swimming pool-water saving" equation with limitations, prohibitions, selective prices or other coercive measures, because the direct and indirect savings generated by swimming pools are very important in some cases. regions (taxes, duties, trade, jobs, ...).

In my opinion, it makes more sense to ask what can be done to recover and use this still "clean" water.
(I say "clean" because drinking swimming pool water is not a priori dangerous ... this summer again I had to drink several liters and I am not even sick!).

It is remarkable to note that the recycling centers are adapting and modernizing to recover wood, cardboard, metals, plants, glass, oils, etc., but nothing has yet been imagined to recover water, which is nevertheless advertised as one of the goods the most precious for our future ...

It is all the less simple that in view of the numerous wastage of water observed and the future severe droughts announced, we are also told that there will be more floods!
Go understand ...