Emmanuel Macron spoke on Wednesday August 24 of the “end of abundance” at the opening of the Council of Ministers, referring in particular to the question of water, while France is suffering from drought. The same day, the deputy Europe ecology-The Greens Sandra Regol deplored on Europe 1 the waste of water in France by asking this question: “Maybe we don’t need clean water to irrigate the fields or […] in our toilets“. What Sandra Regol says is both true and false. We explain why.
The Water Information Center has confirmed it to us: drinking water, tap water, is not used to water crops. Farmers use other resources. They draw from rivers, make underground catchments, also draw from water reserves, which are also called “basins” fed in particular by groundwater. There is also the recovery of rainwater or treated wastewater. If drinking water is therefore not used for irrigation, this does not prevent reflection on the way in which water is used in agriculture.
In France, drinking water is actually used for flushing toilets. There is an explanation. In the 2000s, the Ministry of Health considered that there could be a health risk in using reclaimed water, rainwater, for toilets due to the presence of germs or chemicals. Consequently, as a precautionary principle, the water used is indeed drinking water.
Still, this raises questions when you know that each French person can use tens of liters of water daily just by flushing. In total, it is estimated that each person in France consumes 150 liters of water every day, of which only 8 to 10 liters are drunk or used for cooking. The rest goes into the bathroom, toilets, cleaning and watering.
Faced with the extent of the current drought, the use of drinking water for such broad uses leads to this question: would it be possible to use water that is not drinkable in our daily lives? If the answer seems obvious, the fact remains that such a change will be tricky because it is necessary to create another water circuit in parallel with that of drinking water in the buildings.
The law on the circular economy voted in 2020 encourages rainwater recovery devices in certain collective buildings which will be built from 2023. The water can then be used for watering gardens, outdoor cleaning or cars.
How can everyone be better informed?
Participate in the consultation initiated as part of the European project De facto on the Make.org platform. Franceinfo is the partner