Water Bill

My family's average monthly water consumption for the past six months is about 35.9 cubic meters per month. We live in a condo in an apartment, and the national average for apartments in Singapore is 17.2 cubic meters per month. That means my family is 18.7 cubic meters over the average, which computes to 108.7% higher than the average apartment uses.

There are five people living in my house: my dad, mom, sister, helper, and myself. After I worked out the calculations, I found that each member of my apartment uses about 231.6 liters of water daily. Again, this is much higher than the national average. The average Singaporean who lives in a similar type house as me and has a family of 5, uses about 110.96 liters of water per day. My 231.6 liters is only what I use at home. I also use water at school and when I'm out of my apartment in other places in and out of Singapore.

I think that I definitely need to look at ways to reduce my consumption and not use up so much water. If I could convince my family to help me, I think we could reduce our water use by at least 20% each month. This would put us at 28.7 cubic meters.



My ultimate goal is to reduce our usage by 10% the first month, an additional 10% the second month and another 5% in the third month. If my family and I could reach these goals we would use 32.3 cubic meters on the first month. We would use 28.7 cubic meters on the second month. We would use 26.9 cubic meters on the third month.





The graph below shows my family's water usage for the past six months (the first six months), the average (the colum before my targets, but after the first six months), and my targets for the next three months (the three months after the average).

Here are five ways that my family and I are going to conserve water to reach our targets:

1. Don't run water while brushing teeth, shaving, washing dishes, etc.
2. Take shorter showers.
3. Only do full loads of laundry.
4. Don't water my outdoor plants during a rainy day.
5. Turn the shower off while putting on shampoo or soap.

For other ways to save water, go to these websites:

http://www.pub.gov.sg/conserve/Households/Pages/defualt.aspx

http://www.wateruseitwisely.com/100-ways-to-conserve/index.php

http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/water-conservation-tips/