World Plumbing Day 2024
In case you didn’t notice it, we recently celebrated World Plumbing Day, which took place – as it does every year – on 11 March.
Okay, so ‘celebrated’ may not be strictly accurate – there were no big parties going on into the early hours and we’re probably still some way off the day being declared a public holiday.
If you’re thinking that there are surely enough ‘special’ days already – and considering that 11 March is also National Wash Your Nose Day in the USA, we’re somewhat tempted to agree – you might be wondering what plumbing has done to deserve this momentous event.
So, let’s start with that big question.
Why is there a World Plumbing Day?
According to the World Plumbing Council, World Plumbing Day is there to “spread awareness of the importance of plumbing and plumbers in protecting public health and improving access to clean water and sanitation facilities”.
If you’re not sure if that simple statement provides enough reason for us to celebrate the benefits of plumbing for one day a year, let’s look a little deeper at what plumbing actually does.
The Benefits of Plumbing
In England, most of us take clean water, hot showers, flushing loos, and effective drainage and sewerage for granted. We’d certainly notice their absence if for any reason we suddenly had to go without them.
Unfortunately, many people around the world don’t have the same luxury, and a lack of clean water and sanitation facilities can cause cholera and typhoid, among other potentially deadly diseases.
For example, in 2017 across the world (according to UNICEF):
- 900 million schoolchildren had to manage without handwashing facilities
- 60% of people were without safely managed sanitation
- 30% didn’t have access to clean, safe water at home
- Almost 1,000 children died every day as a result of water-borne diarrhoeal diseases
But things are improving. Between 2000 and 2015, more than 1 billion people gained access to piped water supplies, while the percentage of people in the world with access to safely managed sanitation rose from 28% to 39%.
Such progress would be impossible without trained plumbers and the advances being made that allow clean water and sanitation to reach more people every year.
Plumbing in the UK
Things rarely get so drastic here in the UK as they can in some parts of the world, but that doesn’t mean that plumbing services don’t play a vital role in our daily lives.
Quite apart from the water and sanitation elements described earlier, your friendly local plumber also installs and services the boilers that keep our homes warm in winter and heat the water we use for our showers or baths. They’re also likely to be able to install the gas hobs and ovens we use to cook our food, along with many other gas appliances.
In fact, there are very few occupations that have such an impact in helping to keep us warm, fed, healthy and clean.
Of course, at A&D Plumbing Services, we are just happy to do our jobs without the need for what we do to be the cause for even minor public celebration. But we are glad to be a part of an occupation that is able to carry out such important work and are committed to doing our bit to the very best of our abilities and always delivering the highest levels of customer service as we do.
If you’d like to know more about the range of services available from the team at A&D Plumbing Services – from emergency plumbing and water leaks to boiler repairs, installation and maintenance – then get in touch with us today. We work in and around Colchester as well as the wider areas of Essex, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire.