Water and carbon saved by not overfilling your kettle
We are a nation of tea and coffee drinkers, consuming an average of 229 millions cups a day, which comes to over a billion cups a week, or an enormous 84 billion cups a year.
However, two-thirds of us boil on average twice the amount of water that we actually need. Not only does this waste water, it wastes energy as the kettle takes longer, costs more and releases more CO2. If everyone boiled just what they needed it would cut the length of boiling a kettle by around 90 seconds, save enough energy in a week to run a TV for 26 hours, and over £1 million a week in household bills.
Water & carbon saved:
We consume 229 million cups a day, two-thirds of us filling up with twice what we need. Therefore we waste 0.67 x 229 million = nearly 153.5 million cups of water a day.
If each cup is 200ml then in litres = 0.2 litres x 153.5 million cups = 30 million litres of wasted water every day.
A typical consumer will use their kettle 4 times a day, using 170 kWh of energy per year. If filled correctly 31% of this energy could be saved.
This amounts to a carbon saving of:
Using our grid electricity carbon conversion factor of 0.527 kg CO2 emitted per kWh
(0.31 x 170 kWh) x 0.527 = 27.8 kg CO2 per year.
Across the UK, 140,000 tonnes of CO2 could be saved by filling your kettle with only what you need, and enough electricity to run half the street lighting in the UK.
Energy saving kettles
There are a small number of kettles on the market which will help you save water and energy:
Eco Kettle - has a second chamber that allows you to boil only as much water as you need.
http://www.ecokettle.com
Tefal Quick Cup - heats water in 3 seconds and uses a third of the enrgy of a standard kettle
http://www.tefal.co.uk/tefal/products/product/index.asp?category_id=400&dept_id=430&sku=U00444
Lobo Plunger Filter Kettle - allows you to boil just the water you need - plunge once per cup
http://www.filterkettle.com/
The kettles are also all available at Nigel's Eco Store:
http://www.nigelsecostore.com/acatalog/eco-kettles-and-appliances.html
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