Photo courtesy of freefoto.com

Water and greener printing are connected in two ways - preventing pollution and reducing consumption. This section of the site will explore both of these.

Water is becoming scarcer, even in the UK. We have been concreting over our island for a long time without realising the consequences -  one of which is that the underground aquifers are not being replenished by rain. Aquifers are underground layers of rock that hold water. It can flow through them to feed springs and boreholes, and much of our water is drawn from them: for example, the London Chalk Basin is an aquifer supplying three million cubic metres of water a day. But too much paved area means much of the rain gets channelled to rivers and then out to sea. Climate change is altering rainfall patterns, which further reduces available water, and many rivers have reduced flow.

The amount of water we use is connected to climate change in another way as well: treatment is very energy hungry.

One outcome of all this is that water will become more expensive - as energy prices rise, so will the cost of treating and supplying it. So there are good financial reasons as well as environmental reasons for becoming water aware.