As of 2007, residents of Vancouver, on average used 295 litres of water per day (Per capita water consumption number is 542 litres per day factoring in non-residential water use).
(link)
The contrast is pretty striking.
In India, there are guidelines that have been put into place that have suggested a minimum of about 150 litres per day is needed (see here) via the Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation(CPHEEO) within India’s Ministry of Urban Development.
When you happen to look at 2007 stats for Mumbai, you get a figure of about 191 litres per day per capita (which presumably also includes a heavy load from non-residential use), but there are some major cities such as Bhopai (right in the middle of India and a city with over 1.5 million residents), where the daily consumption is calculated at 72 litres per day per capita (again, this would include non-residential). To put this in perspective, this is equivalent to just over 3 conventional toilet flushes (~67 litres).
Just in case you like to visualize what these volumes all mean, here’s an image of two fridges: one designed with a freezer/fridge compartment to hold 300L and the other to hold 70L.
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POPPERFONT is a work in progress. David Ng is a geneticist, science advocate, and occasional writer. His family is awesome.
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August 2, 2008 at 5:50 am
If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down.
Even taking that into account…it would be nice if more toilets had a mild flush for number one, and saved the high-pressure monster flush for number two.
August 23, 2008 at 12:37 pm
I am living in India now, but I am originally from Kamloops BC, and I can tell you that on top of using much less water– the amount of garbage produced here residentially is next to nothing. In my large Indian house we have three small garbage cans that rarely need to be emptied more than once a week. While there is an alarming amount of garbage on the streets– the at home production is minimal.
October 25, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I have lived in Brasil for two years and have visited on several occassions during the summer months to see my wifes family. All the houses have water meters there..and people are a lot more aware of water use. We take too much for granted here in North America. We need water metered here too.