“You don’t hear them pushing about it… using water doesn’t sound as harmful as using the electricity and that.”

The fourth in our series of ethnographic films looks at water use. This is the area that our householders had thought, and done, least about.

Most of them were confused about how to save water. Latoya, a student from Reading, says: “I take baths and showers, mainly it would be baths, I love taking baths… I reckon that the shower is more wasteful, it’s more water I’m guessing, because it runs, doesn’t it, constantly.” In fact a five minute shower typically uses around a third less water than a bath, unless you have a power shower.

The only household that had picked up water saving habits was the Ward family, because the mother grew up in Australia where regular droughts have made saving water a priority.