To discuss this and more during World Water Week is our studio guest Martin Weyand

from the German Energy and Water Industry Association. Weyand is an economist and manager for the Association’s Water and Sewage Department. DW-TV: There is money to be made with sewage. Let's pull in Martin Weyand with the German Association of Energy and Water Industries. Why not just clean up all the world's sewage ? Would we then have enough clean water for everyone? Martin Weyand: The supply in the world depends just on the sources we have. We must look at how the resources are distributed all over the world. DW-TV: Would you say the key is distribution...or is the key conservation? Martin Weyand: The key issues are resources, and certainly you have to do something for conservation and maintenance and so on. DW-TV: Now you and I were talking earlier and you were saying that saving water actually creates costs. Now explain that to us...a lot of people would actually think they were saving money if they were saving water. Martin Weyand: Yes, if you look at the situation we have here in Germany, we have 123 liters per capita consumption every day, and this is a very low standard. So if you go on saving money further on, you have to flush the pipes and you have to do further things in the sewage sector... So a lot of costs go up, so if you save water it costs money. DW-TV: So it actually costs more money to maintain the pipes if you are not using water... Martin Weyand: ..and for hygiene and so on. DW-TV: Would you say German fail or pass the grade when it comes to conserving water? Martin Weyand: I guess we have to see that in other parts of the world it makes sense to save water. If you look at the US, there's an average per capita consumption of 600 liters a day. So it makes sense to save water and reach a standard like in Germany. DW-TV: Can you explain to us how someone can consume 600 liters of water a day? Martin Weyand: If you look at the standard of living...like a pool or other constructions using water then consumption is very high. DW-TV: Lets talk about the cost...water is not cheap here in Germany, We can see that in comparison with other countries such as the US or Spain, people in Germany pay a lot for H20. Why? Martin Weyand: We have a lot of differences in the system. You have different taxes and subsidies, for example in France the local authorities are paying subsidies to the networks. And you have different qualities standards around the world. So purity of supply is another issue. In Germany you can rely on the security of supply of drinking water, in other parts of the world it is not the same case. In Spain for example for several weeks or days water is interrupted. Also in London there were lots of cases of water interruption . In Germany the maintenance of the networks is very good, and this is not the case in the UK and in the United States. DW-TV: Lets talk about water needed for manufacturing. We've put together a list of products, such as computer chips, leather shoes... Is the lesson here that we shouldn't buy leather shoes anymore? Martin Weyand: No, that's not the lesson. First of all you have to produce leather shoes in a more efficient way, saving energy and saving water. You have to ask also where the shoes were made. It's not helpful to buy shoes from a region where water is scarce. For instance in India or something like that, where you only create water scarcity. In Germany there are enough water resources available. DW-TV: Martin Weyand...thank you very much... (Interview: Brent Goff)

DW-World | August 18, 2009

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