Conserve - Water
No need to talk about the importance, availability and scarcity of this ‘amrit’. Let us only talk about our bit, in the conservation of water, ways to save water in our homes, our very apartments and use it for other purposes. It is like a double benefit you not only save the wasted water but also reduce usage for using it for other purpose for which you would otherwise use potable water. Let us also quantify and demonstrate the amount of water saving per household for a family of 4-6 members.
SAVE / REDUCE USAGE & WASTAGE
I - Water discharge from water ROs
Mostly urban houses have individual ROs and it is a known fact that for every litre (1L) of water filtered three litre (3L) is discharged. No doubt that one litre is precious but 3 litre of discharged water is also valuable. The discharged water can be used for watering plants, cleaning, mopping, washing vegetables, I try to save and use it every day. Let us calculate the conservative savings (I am calling it…Save-O-Meter).
Save-O-meter calculations,
Daily RO water discharge (family of 4) 20 litre
Monthly RO water collection 20X30 = 600 litre
Yearly water collection / saving 600X12 = 7200 litre (7.2 water tanks of 1000 litre each)
So, annually 7200 litres can be saved by just collecting discharged RO water per family. Numbers help understand the magnitude better! So how many litres have you wasted till now🤦♀️?
Some people may think how to collect water from RO discharge, I have empty 5l old oil containers, and I just keep them to collect water. At any given time, I have 4-5 such containers just to collect RO discharge water every day. You can use buckets. Just keep the can in the kitchen sink and put the discharge pipe in the can. I directly water plants from these cans and again re-fill them. It is very simple. Not everyone in the family may start doing it, but you start…. others family members will slowly follow.
II – Water discharged from ACs
Many houses have 2 ACs which continuously runs for hours in summer months. Easily we can collect half a bucket from one AC per day, so for 2 ACs we can collect one full bucket (10 litre). This collected water should only be used for outdoor cleaning or gray water usage only.
Let us check the Save-O-Meter.
Per household daily AC discharge water collection 1 bucket (10 litre)
Monthly collection 10X30 = 300 litre
Yearly collection 300X12 = 3600 litre (3.6 water tank of 1000l each)
III – Watering plants by mugs / water cans instead of hose / pipes
If you have around 10-12 plant pots, it would require 1 bucket of water, but with hose it would take around 3 buckets of water, so we can save 2 buckets of water daily. Also, we can use water collected from the RO discharge and we would not need additional single drop of water for gardening. I have been doing this for years now and fact of the matter is that I have at times more RO discharge than water required to water 10 pots, even 15 pots. Now I have more plants, so I have to complement RO water.
Save-O-meter calculations,
Per household daily saving in gardening 2 buckets = 20 litre
Monthly collection / saving 20X30 = 600 litre
Yearly collection / saving 2X600 = 7200 litre = (7.2 water tanks of 1000 litre)
These are few examples there may be many more ways to save water. Just in three aspects mentioned above the total annual saving a household of 4-6 can achieve is
7200 l + 3600 l + 7200 l = 18,000 l (Eighteen thousand litre!!!) = 18 water tanks of 1000 litre each
18000 litre we can save which we waste without even realizing. Even if 100 families start doing this, we are talking about 18,00,000 litre (18 lakh litre).
This is no longer a choice but our duty to do it, as a family do not waste these 18000 litres of water annually. Next time you or your maid opens a tap to fill a bucket for mopping / cleaning just think if you can use any collected water. Adopt these simple habbits and slight changes to make it a way of life. Let us start it right now!
AVOID POLLUTION / CHEMICALS
Not only the industrial discharge pollutes the water bodies, but all the household chemicals added also ruins it. It is the common everyday stuff that we use daily without even thinking once that they are pure chemicals and finally it goes somewhere from our drains and would cause some harm. Let us list few common items,
1. Detergents – all types of them
2. Soaps & Shampoos
3. All Cleaners – surface or toilet, local or branded to any other option
They are not only harmful to environment but also to our bodies and our households. The marketing campaigns for all these products portray them as our saviours to enable us to ignore their chemical composition / toxicity.
We may not be able to stop using all the products in one go, but we can always find natural substitutes for as many products as possible to limit our chemical usage and discharge. We all know about natural soaps, natural shampoos and bio enzymes for cleaning. I have tried at home to make a few of them, not everyone is inclined to do that but we can start with trying natural / homemade options for at least couple of things. I have tried to remove some of the cleaners from my purchase list and make it myself at home The homemade / natural alternatives are possible for many things.
GENERATE / REGENERATE
Here, lot needs to be done at community / city level to revive lost water bodies and collect rainwater. We at our levels can explore water harvesting and collecting rainwater in whatever way possible.
Look at your potential contribution to water conservation in a holistic way.
बूँद बूँद से सागर भरता है, वही हम सबको बचाना और भरना है! (Drop by drop we can fill the sea)