The Vic govt has this new 'Target 155' scheme going on. Ads showing shiny happy people brushing their teeth without the tap running, and scraping ( as opposed to rinsing ) their plates before popping them in the dishwasher. The target apparently is for every person to reduce their personal usuage of water to 155litres PER person PER day.
Man, I thought, that sounds excessive.
I couldn't help but picture those kids from the WorldVision material, walking miles for a bucket of pissy unpure water for the whole family to probably bathe in and then cook with, or cook with, and then bathe in. Whatever. I tend towards the dramatic.
So we got our water bill yesterday and our WHOLE FAMILY of four uses 194litres per day. That's less than 50litres per person. According to my govt, it should be ok then for me to run out in the backyard and have waterfights and run the sprinkler.
Pisses me off.
Look, we're waterwise, but not Nazis. I do at least a load of washing each day, we shower, the boys have baths ( on the deck in tubs usually, keeps the house dry and I can sit out there with a wine and a book ensuring they don't drown. Noice ). I can't even reduce my showers to the recommended 4minute limit .. and sometimes I let the eldest boy play with a running tap because it gives me peace and he loves it.
So I can't help wondering: what are other people's bills like ?
Are you under T155 ? I want to know, because I think the current allocation is excessive, so why the fuck waste money on promoting it ? If everyone is using the amount we are for example, they're all going to pat themselves on the back and UP their usage as a reward for being good ( "Hey, we can run the sprinkler, we're way under T155!" )
The other thing that annoys me about this lame-arse scheme is that it doesn't take into consideration a sliding scale ( whereby the first person, or lone dweller would probably use 155, but then if s/he got a live-in boy/girlfriend, technically, the usage per person should come down. IMO ). It's a dumbed down system geared for the dumbed-down consumer, no doubt.
Anyway, i'm in a bit of a pissy mood today. Can you tell ?
