Massive UK water consumption

Read all of this Revealed: the massive scale of UK's water consumption | Environment | The Guardian: and the reason why is to understand this better. "Average household water use for washing and drinking in the UK is about 150 litres a person daily, but we consume about 30 times as much in 'virtual water', used in the production of imported food and textiles; Taking virtual water into account, each of us soaks up 4,645 litres a day;"
The idea of a water footprint is likely to be of growing importance. BTW is that not a sign that the footprint thing is a dead metaphor? Otherwise 'water footprint' would appear to be oxymoronic ... wouldn't it? Got a better metaphor?

Waterless Washing Machine

Some things sound too good to be true and are, however some sound too good to be true but aren't, and this appears to be one of them. Waterless Washing Machine � Celsias: "developed at the University of Leeds, ... a clean load of laundry for less than 2% of the water and energy of a conventional washing machine. The process works by replacing water with plastic polymer chips which are tumbled with the clothes to remove stains. The technology has been proven to measure up to cleaning industry standards, removing virtually all types of everyday stains as effectively as existing processes whilst leaving clothes as fresh as normal washing and dry enough to dispense tumble-drying."
It may be available in 2009 or 2010. It could be the Dyson of the washing world; another notch in the belt of British invention.