Riot for Austerity: the Aussie household averages I use

There is a lot of information about averages for some Aussie consumption areas, such as electricity, but for others there is very little, which makes life a bit tricky when you want to reduce your figures! These are the values that I use to calculate our figures, and if anyone has differing figures that they use, please feel free to let me know. Where I have found competing figures, I have generally chosen the lowest of the averages available, just 'cause I like being conservative :-)

For the purposes of my calculations, I have designated the "average" household to consist of 2.6 people, so you will need to recalculate according the number of people in your household. I do this by dividing the "average" figure by 2.6 and then multiplying it by 5 (i.e. the number of people in our household). It is also a good idea to check your bills as they might contain more specific average figures for your region, like my water bill. I have also disregarded the fact that I have purchased carbon credits for the emissions from our two cars, as I view them as an interim measure while we reduce our actual use of fuel over the year.

Average household electricity use: 6000 kWh/year
Natural gas: 100 MJ/day
Water: 625 L/day (according to my water bill, my region is actually 590 L/day)
Rubbish: 11.9 kg/week
Recycling: 3.1 kg/week
Petrol: 3124 L/year/per person OR
Car travel: 41.4 km/day
Consumer goods: $300/week.

I highly recommend looking at the Riot website for the rules, as there are a lot of allowances for second-hand consumer goods or GreenPower, for example, and it explains a lot more clearly about eating locally versus imported and processed foodstuffs (although I still find evaluating our food percentages tricky).

Hope this helps a bit :-)