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May 15, 2017

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Big water savings as leaky taps replaced

SHANGHAI Water Authority is tapping into water saving.

It has changed 80,000 taps in old residential areas as part of a nationwide effort to promote rigorous standards on water saving.

Officials said yesterday that about 76,000 cubic meters of water was saved annually as the authority changed the leak-prone iron taps to ceramic ones free of charge. The new taps use about 25 percent less water.

Wu Yaomin, water saving department director with the authority, said yesterday — the beginning of the annual water saving week — that over 40,000 households in old residential areas in Hongkou, Jing’an, Yangpu and Putuo districts had benefited since the project was launched in 2013.

The United Nations predicted more than a decade ago that if Shanghai carried on as it had been, it would face a very severe water shortage. The city has also been criticized at home for a lack of sufficient clean drinking water.

The water authority said that although many rivers and creeks flowed across the city, much of the water had been polluted and was undrinkable. Only 20 percent of the ground water can be used, according to the authority.

The authority yesterday awarded industrial parks, companies, schools and neighborhoods for water-saving practices.

Changyang Community in Yangpu District, for instance, managed to promote a water-saving car wash service among its residents.

The service costs about 20 yuan (US$2.90) and used only 1.5 liters of water to wash a vehicle, compared with 120 liters using traditional methods, said Wu Yuqin, director with the residents’ committee of the community.

For local corporations, the water authority has installed sensors in companies using 20,000 cubic meters or more of water per month to encourage them to save water, Wu said.

The company could monitor how much water it consumed and an alert would be triggered if any pipeline leakage occurred, he added.

The average daily water consumption of Shanghai residents was 118 liters per person in 2016, up 5.4 percent on 2015, the water authority said yesterday.

Industrial water consumption last year dropped 9.7 percent from 2015.


 

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