Two taps why

Many who visit the UK from abroad find this one of the if not the single strangest quirks about our country. Many visitors are left scratching there heads as to why we got to the extra effort of fitting a second tap just to keep hot and cold apart. So why do we insist on having two separate taps? The simple answer to this question is that most people are right — handed, and the cold tap is used the most.

So, therefore, the hot tap is on the left. This is the other percentage of drinking water which is retrieved from boreholes that access groundwater directly and pump it to the surface.

It then goes through the same treatment and pipe system and combines to reach the city. On a typical day in London, this water system provides over 2, million litres of drinking water, which doubles during hot spells.

When you flush a toilet or drain your sink, the used water goes down a drainpipe and travels out into the larger system of sewer pipes under the roads of London. Local sewers then join a larger web of sewer pipes and wastewater finally reaches to a sewage treatment facility — sometimes by drainage and sometimes by pumping. Then the first stage of purifying wastewater involves removing large objects that could damage equipment or present pollution to local waterways.

After this separation, wastewater still contains organic solid matter, meaning human waste. Close Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website.

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