For World Water Day, Let’s Celebrate Reliable Access

Happy World Water Day!

This year’s theme is “leave no one behind.” That’s because there are 2.1 billion people globally without safe water at home. Children in one in four primary schools have no drinking water service.

While the data for the U.S. is considerably rosier (UNICEF data finds that 99 percent of the population is using piped water), anyone who has experienced a major water main break knows that you can’t always take safe and reliable access for granted.

Choose your pipe material wisely.

While we can’t avoid pipe breaks entirely, we can reduce them.

A newspaper in Topeka, KS, looked into the city’s water main breaks. The Topeka Capital-Journal found that the pipe material chosen had a significant impact on whether or not your neighborhood would experience a water main break. Over the years, Topeka diversified its 870 miles of pipe and the system today is 39 percent cast iron pipe, 27 percent ductile iron pipe, and 25 percent PVC pipe.

 

The newspaper discovered that approximately 66.8 percent of the city’s water main breaks were from cast iron pipes and 18.4 percent from ductile iron pipes. Only 4.5 percent were from PVC pipes.

PVC pipe is safe, reliable, and sustainable—and the material of choice for maintaining a dependable water supply.