The Means to an End – the work that goes into our water

Behind the taps and the flushes, the water network that supplies our homes and businesses with clean drinking water and removes our wastewater for treatment is vast.

In England and Wales, there are an incredible 567,256km of sewer pipes – that’s enough to stretch from the Earth to the moon and halfway back. Almost 25 million properties are connected to those sewers, carrying almost 4,000 tonnes of organic materials from our homes and businesses to be treated every day in one of the more than 6,000 sewage treatment centres around the country.

The water used in our homes and business comes from one of over 400 lakes, reservoirs and rivers or over 2,000 underground sources. Water for drinking is treated by over 1,000 dedicated treatment centres and then pumped into our homes and businesses through a network of 343,865km of pipes – enough to stretch around the equator eight and-a-half times.

Workforce

Some 166,500 people are employed in the UK water industry. That compares with 87,000 in the electrical power industry and 143,700 in the gas industry. All this work results in water that meets strict standards of safety 99.96% of the time, and costs less than 0.3p for 2 litres.

The average person uses 140 litres of water a day, most probably without thinking about the work that goes into producing that clean water and taking it away so efficiently. 93% of customers are happy with their water service and 88% of customers are happy with their wastewater services.

There are 1.2 million businesses in England and Wales, and a further 130,000 in Scotland that can now choose their water and wastewater supplier.

This vast water infrastructure is already in place to ensure that all businesses can maintain clean, efficient water services. Castle Water are here to make sure that business water users are getting the best deal possible and maximising the water they use every day. So far, we’ve saved our customers more than £20 million.

We want to make sure that everyone understands the work that goes into our water services and appreciates this valuable resource.

Sources: DiscoverWater.com, University of Warwick.