Water Conservation

Special offers and advice

Information on water efficiency is available from your water company. They often have special offers on water butts and may be able to provide you with ‘save-a-flush’ bags for your toilet cistern. Contact your water company on:

0845 9200 800 -Thames Water
0845 301 0845 - South East Water
0845 782 3333 - Three Valleys Water

Additionally, information is available from

Savings on Tap - saving water at home
Envirowise - advice for businesses
Waterwise - for businesses and domestic customers

Climate change and water

Climate change has a varied influence on the environment in the UK. In summer we face serious droughts that affect the south of England. Weather patterns can also be erratic with short bursts of heavy rainfall that affect our infrastructure and our livelihoods as we've seen in recent years. Even with this unpredictability there still will be pressures on our water reserves so the Environment Agency recommends that we conserve water. For updates and further information on the water shortages visit the Environment Agency website.

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Why would water shortages affect us?

The south east region is one of the driest in the country - it is a little-known fact that the region receives less rainfall per person than Istanbul. We are also using more water now than ever before. Twenty years ago the average person used 140 litres a day. This has risen to 163 litres today. Bracknell Forest Borough lies with in the south east region and falls across three different water supply companies – Thames Water, Three Valleys Water and South East Water. Water companies and the public need to take action now to minimise the impact of drought during the summer season. All three water companies can announce domestic hosepipe bans to start when water availability is reduced.

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Saving water in the home

By thinking carefully about your water use in the home it is easy to save water.

Use the minimum amount of water required when you boil water in saucepans and kettles
Keep a bottle or jug of water in the fridge instead of running taps until the water runs cold
Half-load programmes on dishwashers and washing machines use more than half the water of a full load - so wait until you have a full load
Don’t leave the tap running while you brush your teeth as this can waste up to 5 litres of water per minute
A 5-minute shower uses about a third of the water of a bath. (NB power showers can use more water than a bath in less than 5 minutes)
Old toilet cisterns can use as much as 9 litres of clean water every flush. Reduce this by placing a ‘save-a-flush’ or ‘hippo’ bag in the cistern
Cotton wool and tissues should be put in a waste bin rather than flushed down the toilet
Dripping taps can waste up to 4 litres of water a day so replace worn tap washerstop

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Saving water in the garden

There are lots of simple ways to save or reduce the use of mains water in the garden for more information about water conservation in the garden visit our greener gardening pages.