Thursday 10 August 2023: Kitchen Water Challenge

Thursday 10 August 2023: Kitchen Water Challenge

1.      Which water-saving behaviours, if any, do you plan to continue practising and why? Are there any you won’t be continuing - if so, which ones and why?

2.      Imagine you are talking to your friend about the Kitchen Challenge - how would you summarise your experience in a few words? Would you encourage them to try it for themselves - why/why not?

3.      Overall, how easy or difficult was it to take part in the challenge? Why do you say this?

4.      What concerns do you have about the challenge/tips, if any?

5.      What improvements or changes would you make to the challenge and how would this make the challenge better?

6.      If you have any other thoughts or feedback on the challenge please share these with us.

1. I intend to continue with all of the water-saving behaviours - because I have been doing this for some years. No, there are none with which I shall not persist.

2. I am, in general, loathe to attempt to persuade anyone about anything. As a Quaker, I know that Quaker ways and beliefs are attractive to only a minority of people. As a former professional counsellor, I know that people will voluntarily change their behaviour only when they wish to do so. As a strict vegan, I know from considerable personal experience that people who eat dead animals are as convinced of the appropriateness of their dietary choices as I am of mine. The problem comes when conviction of dietary choices is changed from appropriateness for oneself to appropriateness for other people. Certainly, I am willing to explain my lifestyle choices to anyone who asks and wishes to listen, but not with an intent to persuade. Besides, for far too much of recent and not so recent history, persuasion has been a dark art perpetrated by people and organisations that seek to gain, or at least to limit their losses, such as the tobacco smoking lobby, the fossil fuel industry, and people who wished the UK to be withdrawn from the EU.

3. It was either easy or difficult to participate, depending on one's perspective. As I already engage in those water-saving behaviours in the kitchen, then continuing those behaviours was simplicity itself. On the other hand, as an underlying purpose of the exercise is/was to increase the amount of water I am able to save, then the exercise was near impossible.

4. Taking a marginally more sophisticated view of the purpose of the exercise, using the Water Community as guinea pigs before widening the Kitchen Water Challenge to all private customers of Affinity Water, I have no major concerns. A minor concern is that the quantities of water likely to be saved might not match the figures suggested. A second minor concern is that, to my ear, the term 'Kitchen Challenge' sounds like it should concern food preparation, which features in only a minor way. How about "Water Saving Challenge: Kitchen"?

5. I feel bound to say that a large bucket close to the sink does a lot to permit the re-use (and therefore saving) of water. I have since heard of others who do something similar.

6. Affinity Water allows a considerable quantity of water to be wasted in leaks (a point I have hitherto made ad nauseam). In my view, it would behove Affinity Water well to state this at the outset, and to ask its customers to help Affinity Water by saving water wherever possible, the 'Kitchen Challenge' being a special focus. Otherwise, the project looks like Affinity Water asking its customers to reduce water use instead of Affinity Water fixing those leaks.