From everyone at Precious Water, we wish you and your family a very happy Christmas and holiday season. We also wish you a peaceful, prosperous and love-filled 2010.

Precious Water is closed over the holiday period, but we will be back to help save our precious resources in mid January.

Posted: December 25th, 2009 under general.
Comments: none

Climate change is here, its important and its our common responsibility to deal with. As climate change progresses, many people are going to be affected by floods, famine, lost land and human events. And many people feel strongly about calling us all to action – today is blog action day for climate change and we want to do our bit to help our planet.

Climate change obviously affects water. The obvious impact for Victorians in recent years has been hotter weather and less rain leading to the draught and Black Saturday – there is no reason to believe that temperatures will drop back to what they were 20 or 50 fifty years ago, so we need to be careful with our water supplies if we want to survive.

The other impact, eventually, will be an increase in sea levels. In one sense we could be pleased about additional water but the reality is that sea water is too salty for us and desalination plants are expensive and have their own issues.

We believe it is important to work against climate change – at least we can slow it down. Some of the steps we think will help are:

• encourage households to introduce general environmental practises (turing off unwanted lights, saving water, putting on a jumper not a heater, etc)
• encouraging people to add conservation facilities to their homes, such as water tanks, solar hot water systems, solar power generators and good insulation
• reducing our reliance on cars – let’s walk more and travel by train, tram or bus for longer distances
• ensuring all new buildings (not just houses) are energy efficient – that means designing them properly rather than just adding a few environmentally friendly features to a poor design
• educate ourselves and our children about the impact of our daily choices – for example, how much does it cost the environment to choose a Victorian apple compared to an apple from overseas?

What is your favourite tip for reducing climate change? How important do you consider conserving water as part of working against climate change?

Posted: October 15th, 2009 under challenges, general.
Comments: 3

Did you now that 1 litre of oil can pollute 1 million litres of water? That’s a lot of water from a little but of oil!

So part of saving water is keeping it clean but not polluting with oil. Some ways we can help…

• don’t use oil if we really don’t have to – try non stick cooking trays and stuff
• check cars for oil leaks and fix them soon
• don’t throw oil down the sink – pour it in the bin, add it to compost or take to a drop off point (depending on type of oil)
• make sure boats & ships don’t have leaks or spills
• don’t leave oil where it can be knocked over and spill into creeks or drains
• walk as much as possible to use less oil & petrol

Posted: May 17th, 2009 under general, junior water, saving water.
Comments: none

We’re no financial experts, and frankly can’t judge how long the economy will be down or how much the Budget will shorten the recession by, but we have reviewed the Budget for it’s greenness and here’s what we found…

1.The Initiative comprises three new elements:

• a $2.0 billion investment in carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects under a CCS Flagships program
• a $1.5 billion Solar Flagships program to demonstrate large‑scale solar technologies

2. $2 billion over 9 years towards projects that will deal with carbon dioxide collection and storage.

3. A $100 million grant in 2009‑10, which will create an energy network in one demonstration project that integrates a smart grid with smart meters in homes.

4. Establishing a new renewable technology innovation body — Renewables Australia — with an initial funding allocation of $465 million over four years.

5. Introducing a new Solar Flagships program with funding of $1.5 billion over six years that will invest in large‑scale solar electricity generation projects. Through the development of up to four major projects the program will demonstrate solar at a capacity of 1,000 MW, which is similar in scale to that of a large coal‑fired power station.

So there is certainly some green spending in the plans, but nothing for water conservation unfortunately.

Posted: May 13th, 2009 under Uncategorized, general.
Comments: none

We have joined May Madness with Save Time Online so for the month of May, we are offering a special deal (10% discount for all tanks) - no catches, nothing extra for you to do except mention May Madness when you place your order.

And while you’re at it, you may just find some other great, sorry mad, deals to stretch your budget further.

Posted: May 1st, 2009 under Uncategorized, general, water tanks.
Comments: none

Your immediate answer is likely to be no, but are you sure? About 70% of Australia is classed as desert or semi-desert.

And that may well increase for southern Australia if climate change continues to reduce our rainfall.

Our average annual rainfall is 472mm – and it’s a lot less than that in many places, especially as you consider how much they get in the rainforest areas. Look at how southern Australia has been suffering from a severe drought while parts of Queensland and NSW are being flooded!

Have you ever thought of yourself as living in a largely desert country?

Posted: February 6th, 2009 under general.
Comments: none

Have you figured out your daily water usage? Is it better (that is, less) than this time last year? If so, what are the biggest changes you have made in the last year?

A lot of water bills now include your water usage per person – our most recent one even compared it to the targeted 155 litres for us  (yes, we are well under – in fact, we use less than half the target each.)

If your bill doesn’t tell you, simply divide your total litres by the number of days covered by the bill and divide again by the number of people in your home. Does the answer surprise you?

Posted: January 30th, 2009 under challenges, general.
Comments: none

It is Christmas Day (already for some, finally for others!) and we hope you have a day with friends and family, enjoying each other’s company, sharing some laughs and take time out from the ordinary.

We also wish you a prosperous and fun 2009!

Stay safe and please don’t drink and drive.

Precious Water is closed over the holiday period, but we will be back to help save our precious resources in mid January.

Posted: December 25th, 2008 under general.
Comments: none

As part of our aim to save water and protect our planet, we provide informative articles on our site for you to read – and even use on your website or in your newsletter and so forth (please note the conditions listed on our articles page though.)

We are pleased to announce that we have just added another three articles as resources for you – two are particularly relevant if you run a business and the other is about Christmas (can you believe Christmas is approaching already?)

You can view all of our articles on our articles page, along with our colouring pages and a growing resource of information to help children learn about water and its conservation.

Posted: September 25th, 2008 under general.
Comments: 2

Having introduced some environmentally friendly behaviours to your life and business, it can be easy to leave it at that – and hard to find further changes to make.

Like other things, such as running a business or being a parent, conservation behaviour can be expanded. Here are some ideas on how to learn more about conservation and gather ideas you can put into action:

• Read some green blogs and newsletters
• Talk to other people
• Attend sustainable living festivals
• check out your local library for green books and magazines
• Give yourself some time to think and be creative

Some websites you may find useful include:

• Precious Water articles
• Who on Earth cares? register to mark your feelings known…
• Green schools connect
• Australian Conservation Foundation
• Global mindshift
• Save Time Online’s energy guide lists many more resources, too

Posted: September 4th, 2008 under general.
Comments: none