Water Campaign™ case study

CITY OF BURNSIDE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Time for change: 'A change in Burnside can change the world' shower timer campaign

: Community action

: Water conservation

The City of Burnside, South Australia, is an inner urban community located east of the Adelaide CBD with a population of 43,796. Council has been a participant in the ICLEI Water Campaign™ since 2004.

Synopsis

The City of Burnside's shower timer campaign "A change in Burnside can change the world" was a city-wide campaign designed to raise awareness in the community about the importance of water conservation.

Between 25 June and 2 July 2008, each household within the Burnside Council area received a water conservation pack containing a four-minute shower timer, fridge magnet and information card.

: The water conservation pack sent to all residents

Motivation

Lack of water has been a major environmental issue in South Australia in recent years. Reduced rainfall and heavy reliance on the ailing River Murray and Adelaide hills flows has put pressure on Adelaide’s water supply.

Through the Water Campaign™ Milestone 1 phase Council calculated the community sector water use patterns, discovering that approximately 96 per cent (6,600,000 kilolitres) is used by residents. This highlighted the opportunities for large water savings to be gained by encouraging the community to take action at a household level.

The Shower Timer Campaign demonstrated to the community that water conservation can be a simple and affordable goal for any household and that simply reducing shower time can significantly reduce water consumption. The distribution of the packs in June and July reminded residents that we experience water shortages and drought conditions even during winter.

Council’s Strategic plan Vision 2020 identifies “sustainable use of water” as a desired outcome, and one of the key actions is:

The provision of information to the community about costs and benefits of water conservation.

The Shower Timer Campaign also formed part of Council’s community environmental awareness program and identified the potential for large savings of water and energy consumption within the household by simply reducing shower time.

Significant financial savings were also identified for each household, making for a very favourable project.

Training and Education

Before and after the distribution of the shower timer, a series of information seminars raising water conservation awareness were included in Council’s community environmental awareness program. Seminars included topics such as rainwater tank and grey water systems, planting drought tolerant and local plant species, and composting workshops were also held.

Additionally, Council provides a rainwater tank modelling framework based on local rainfall data. This framework assists residents and builders with determining the best size rainwater tank for their needs.

Costs, savings and benefits

Council invested $20,350 to design, produce and distribute the shower timers to each household.

Based on the assumption that every Burnside resident would reduce their shower time from seven minutes to four minutes, the campaign could result in significant water, electricity and financial savings.

Water conservation benefits

The potential daily savings are up to 106 litres per household, or 1.98 megalitres per day for the whole of the Burnside community.

Other environmental benefits

Each household could save up to 0.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually. The potential cumulative savings would be 8000 tonnes of greenhouse gas annually for Burnside residents (equivalent to removing approximately 2500 cars from the road each year).

Financial benefits

The potential cumulative financial savings would be $1.4 million annually for Burnside residents.

Lessons learnt

Although the feedback from residents was very positive it is possible that if the campaign had been released to residents in the summer months the impact may have been greater, as drought conditions are most obvious to our community during the hotter and drier months, rather than the cooler winter months.

It may also have been beneficial to distribute more than one shower timer per household, as many residents were interested in obtaining shower timers for all bathrooms.

Further information

Belinda Portelli
Senior Environmental Management Officer
Ph: +61 (08) 8366 4108

City of Burnside website.

Shower Timer Campaign website.

Contact details

For further information about the ICLEI Water Campaign™ in Australia please contact:

ICLEI Oceania
5/267 Collins St
Melbourne Vic 3000
Ph:   +61 3 9639 8688
Fax:   +61 3 9639 8677
Email:   oceania@iclei.org
Website:   www.iclei.org/oceania/water

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Council staff for their assistance in producing this case study.

Photographs supplied by Council.

Quoted population figures are taken from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Report 3218.0, Regional Population Growth, Australia 2006-07, March 2008.

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