£200 for being more green? Yes please

I have in my hands the rarest of items these days – notification of a utility bill rebate. More than £200 worth too. Thanks very much, I’ll have that.

Given the terrifying predictions around bills and the cost-of-living crisis overall right now it feels like I’m defying some sort of law of nature. Especially as the same rebate merrily also tells us our direct debits will drop by 45 per cent from March.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than happy to snatch my money back from those making massive profits by, for example, failing to invest in system upgrades that mean our local river is unsafe to swim in.

But the statement also reveals that in the last six months of the bill we used less water than we did in the previous January to June. You remember last January, right? The most recent iteration of the whole “can’t leave your house for three months” bit?

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Which means we weren’t even here – holed up in a “household” with the in-laws because we had learned the one about two full-time jobs, two small children and a two-hour round trip for childcare in lockdown two.

So what our rebate told us was that we used less water in the last six months than we did in the previous three months that we were here. In which case, I’m definitely going to claim that as having roughly halved our water usage.

Smug didn’t even start to cover it.

Certainly, there have been bricks in the cisterns and as few baths as we can get away with for some time. Rinsing of fruit and veg is done in a bowlful, rather than under a constantly running tap. Other taps are turned off while lathering up and brushing teeth, and aerators, too, have figured in the how-do-we-reduce our water consumption/bill chat in a bid to cut the amount of water we get through without really realising. (I know what you’re thinking. The convos around here of an evening are nothing less than sparkling.)

But that’s the problem, we really don’t realise. If you ask a UK-based consumer, how much water each individual gets through in a day, several surveys suggest they’ll plump for something around 20l per person per day. The true figure is something over 140l on average – one of the highest in Europe.

So more recently we’ve been timing showers, though I’m not at all sure the inevitable race to the shortest shower is a great message to offer the world’s messiest children. Or the muddiest husband.

And while there was once a tacit arrangement that means all water left over from drinks or cooking, or rinsing, would get tipped into house plants or straight into the water butt outside, there’s now a dedicated receptacle for the ready to be reused wet stuff sitting poised for action on the sink.

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Instead of pouring it down the drain and pulling in pricey fresh H20, the nearly new version gets recycled, used to pre-soak the gnarly bits on oven dishes, or rinse milk bottles, or coax soil off veg before cooking or myriad other uses that don’t need the crystal clear option, at least not initially.

So I’m putting that refund down to the prominence of a big, well-labelled glass bottle. At least I thought it was well labelled. And obvious in its purpose. And definitely, definitely, not for drinking.

Especially when you come in late from the lycra’d midlife crisis otherwise known as a “ride with the lads” looking for rapid rehydration. From the insane riding that is, certainly not from the beers afterwards.

Luckily for the other half that particular day’s second-hand water had only gone through a steamer. No disintegrated pasta or, thankfully, a four-year-old’s diluted backwash complete with “floaty bits”.

To be fair to him, the other half barely blinked after draining the lot. He merely eyed me over the rim and carefully asked if it had been infused with something – clearly very pleased with himself for knowing that was a thing. I didn’t dare tell him that yes, it had – the kids’ frozen broccoli.

On the plus side, at least if I inadvertently give my husband some form of dysentery while slashing our water consumption, I’ve now got a few extra pounds in my pocket to cover the hospital parking. Either that or the subsequent couples therapy.