Most of us have a vast range of cleaning products in our home, each supposedly formulated to clean one specific item: windows, carpets, cooker tops, sinks, suede, paving – you name it, there are a bunch of products available to clean it.

It’s not only the amount of water we use that matters but what we put into it and how we dispose of it. Our used water (and any chemicals we add to it such as surfactants, bleaches, detergents and phosphates) goes into drains, then to rivers, and onwards into the sea.

Should you use a dishwasher or wash up by hand? Although your dishwasher uses electricity, you need to heat water in order to handwash, and you would typically use two and a half times more water handwashing. But there again, that figure depends on how efficient (and new) your dishwasher is. And before you put dishes in the dishwasher do you scrape off remains, or rinse them off?

We use a lot of energy washing clothes. You can reduce this by:

• buying a washing machine that is the size you need

• buying an “A” rated washing machine or better (there are now “AA” rated machines as well

• washing at 40^oC or below