A press release from Thames Water today blames women for wasting 50 billion litres of water by shaving their legs in the shower.
"A third of UK women leave the shower running while shaving their legs, wasting around 50bn litres of water a year – enough to supply London for 25 days, according to research published today."
So far the story's been picked up by the Daily Mail and the Telegraph, suggesting the PR team at Thames Water may have picked the right angle to lead with (despite the same release claiming that a far more significant 120 billion more litres of water are apparently wasted by people leaving the tap running while brushing their teeth).
It probably helped of course that the Daily Mail is incapable of passing up an opportunity to use a picture of a model in the shower.
However, as PR exercises go, it seems to be backfiring, not just because of its clumsy singling out of women but also because such finger-pointing rather invites a comparison with the amount of water Thames Water itself wastes through leakage across its network. Here is that comparison:
Daily water wastage (litres)
The Guardian is leading the charge in taking Thames Water to task.
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