The story : George gets in from running, and goes to the kitchen sink to get himself a refreshing glass of water from the tap. George is much like you or I, in that he doesn’t like drinking tepid water, and so he lets it run five or six seconds until the water is cold. In those seconds, over a litre of clean, drinkable water is poured into the used water system.

The idea : A new kind of tap. When George turns, or lifts the tap to get the water running, it indeed starts running, but doesn’t yet leave the tap. For the five or six seconds it takes to become cool, the one litre volume of tepid water runs a circuit outside of the regular tap system, (think coronary bypass) that’s hidden in a box beneath the sink/basin. The cooler water arrives, and as it leaves the tap, the tepid bypass water is gradually reintegrated into the water that’s being poured.

Copyright Sophia Burnett 2010 PRO BONO