Congratulations! You are one of the lucky four billion people in the world that has clean water coming out of your taps!
Around one billion people worldwide do not have any water within a 15 minute radius of their homes, and sometimes the water is not even clean when they get to it. Read on and find out where the water comes from before it reaches your tap and where it goes after you have finished with it!
Catching the Rain
In Melbourne, the water that comes out of your taps has travelled a long way to get there! Catchments catch rain water which then travels downhill and into a
reservoir.
Our largest catchments are located in mountainous areas north-east of Melbourne where it usually rains more. Melbourne's catchments are protected from people and pollution, making our drinking water of a very high quality.
Want to know more?
Click on the link below for more pictures and facts about water quality.
Water Quality fact sheet (120 KB)
The long watery journey
Water from the reservoirs travels through hundreds of kilometres of pipes and through other reservoirs before it is stored in very large storage tanks all over Melbourne.
Challenge! If you feel like doing some private investigating, you could find out where the nearest storage tank is near your house!
When you turn on the tap, water travels from the storage tank through pipes, through your water metre (so we can count how much water you use and send you a bill) and out of your tap!
Challenge! See if you can find the water metre for your home!
Want to know more?
Click on the link below for more pictures and facts about water supply.
Water supply fact sheet (132 KB)
Don't forget to flush!
What do you use water for at home? You can probably come up with many things! We need water for everyday things like drinking, washing, watering, and of course, flushing the toilet.
Have you ever wondered where the water goes to after you have finished with it? Because the water is not clean anymore, it is called wastewater or sewage and it is sent through the drains and sewers to a special place called a sewerage treatment plant.
Sewage Treatment Plant
Wastewater from your house may have some very interesting things in it! At the sewerage treatment plant they find lots of toys, mobile phones, money and sometimes even false teeth! As you can imagine, it takes quite some time to clean all the wastewater.
Once it has been cleaned, most of the water is pumped out to sea. Depending on how well it has been cleaned, some of the water is recycled and re-used on farms, parks, golf courses, schools and even some people's houses!
Challenge! Recycled water can be used for almost anything except drinking and personal hygiene (eg showers, brushing teeth). What do you think you could use this recycled water for at your home?
Want to know more?
Click on the link below to find out more about Melbourne's urban water cycle, and how sewerage systems used to work in the old days!
History of sewerage systems fact sheet (338 KB)
History of our water supply fact sheet (112 KB)