Little drops of water save a mighty planet

“Little drops of water save a mighty planet”

Top 10 tips to help you re-establish your connection with nature

So, you think a bucket-and-mug bath is a water-saving one? You couldn’t be more off the mark! Here’s a cool list of things you could do to save a very, very precious resource called water.

1.      Take a shower. Studies have shown that it saves up to 40 per cent water against a bucket-and-mug bath. Moreover, it’s quicker, more efficient and clean.

2.      When you are washing the car, ensure that you do not use a hose pipe or running water. Use a damp cloth instead. This will save water, bring down electricity bills and keep your car shiny and rust-free! And when you sweep the courtyard, sprinkle water from a mug; don’t hose down the area. The dust will settle will just a brisk sprinkling of water from the mug.

3.      Turn off the tap while you are brushing your teeth. Most people merrily leave the tap on while they brush and preen and pout! If you are simply too lazy or forgetful, then get you have to invest in quarter turn taps.

4.      Replace leaking taps and valves right away. One dripping tap can lead to 120 litres of water being wasted every day and this number equals one person’s daily water use!

5.      However stylish a lawn may look, please don’t have one in your garden. Green lawns are actually green deserts. They guzzle water. Instead, grow hibiscus, crotons, plumeria and such water-saving plants. And, whatever you do, don’t grow banana trees in your kitchen garden. Do you know that every kilo of bananas drinks up 3500 litres of water? Do the math now: a 10-kg banana bunch consumes 35,000 litres of water. You’d have to water the plant every day for a whole year before you actually enjoy the fruit of your labour, but at what environmental cost? Water has to be pumped for over 100 km (from the Cauvery) just so that you get your home-grown banana fix! Just buy a bunch when the mood strikes you!

6.      Say ‘No’ to potted plants and grow plants in the soil. Plants that grow in soil consume less water as the moisture in the soil keeps them hydrated and healthy.

 7.      Use the water that you wash the veggies in to water your plants. Wash greens in a bucket of water instead of the kitchen sink and use the muddy water in your garden. You can even use the veggie-washed water to clean your courtyard.

8.      There’s nothing called “old water”. I’ve watched -- in horror -- as folks throw away water that’s been stored for a week or more on the pretext that it has become “old”! Water that is stored in an open tank with light entering it will certainly lead to the growth of algae/ bacteria. Make sure that you store water in covered tank or in containers kept covered in a dark place. Such water is fit for use even after months or years.

9.      Did you know that a Front Loading washing machine saves 50% of water when compared to Top Loading washing machine? Also you can recycle the water that your washing machine spews out every day, this needs some infrastructure like a separate sump with a pump and a dedicated overhead tank which is connected to the toilet flushing system. 

10.  Always water your plants/ garden at dawn or dusk, never in 

the afternoons.  

Talk these ideas over with your neighbors and friends.

Zero Bacteria - Drinking Water

 “Zero Bacteria - Drinking Water”

No Electricity, No chemicals, No boiling!

Bacterial contamination in drinking water is very common and many a time not detected with normal observation.

Silver metal is a well known bactericide and thin silver sheets can be used to purify water.

Process:

• ·         Collect 10lt of raw water in a container with lid
• ·         Immerse pure silver sheet of A4 size paper size around 22cm X 30cm
• ·         Allow the water with silver sheet in the container (dark inside) for around 10 hours without disturbing
• ·         Water will be bacteria free after 10 hours.

Points to note:

• ·         Use pure silver sheet
• ·         Thickness of silver sheet does not matter, surface area is important
• ·         Keep silver sheet 24 X 7, 365 days immersed in water and in dark
• ·         Once in 4 days wash the silver sheet in running water, wipe it dry with clean cloth and reuse for water treatment

Additional Information:

Water from Rainwater tank, open well, bore well, lakes, ponds, rivers and canals can provide water for domestic use. However, all these sources have varying degree of contaminants, rainwater being the purest and the surface water stored in an open pond may be the most contaminated. All the above sources need to be treated for potable purposes.

Rainwater collected from a surface is relatively free from salts and other dissolved impurities compared to water from bore well, open well or from river.  However rainwater collected from the surface may be contaminated (bacteriological contamination). Fecal coliform and E.coli are the common and harmful bacteria present in all the above sources of water.

Salient features of treating water by silver sheet:

·         A simple and a safe method for treating water

·         Provides 100% bacteria free drinking water

·         No electricity or chemicals required

·         No harmful side effects and does not impart any odour or taste to the water

·         An inexpensive and affordable method

·         No recurring cost

·         No maintenance

·         Suitable for urban as well as rural conditions

·         An environment friendly method

·         Any individual can treat water at his/her own place with this method

·         Effortless, convenient method for all the section of our society

·         Can be carried with you where ever you go

Note:

·         This method of treatment does not alter the salts / chemical composition of water

·         The higher the bacterial contamination more is the surface area of silver need to be exposed for water treatment

·         Time taken to treat water may be reduced for a given quantity of water by increasing surface area of silver directly in contact with water

Cheapest Material will give you Purest Rainwater

Cheapest Material will give you Purest Rainwater

Sand bed filter is the traditional method of water purification Systems.

In a confined masonry structure, coarse riverbed sand, pebbles and aggregates are filled one above the other as layers separated by plastic mesh.

Rainwater is allowed at the top from one end and filtered water is drawn from the bottom at the other end.

Aggregates, sand and plastic mesh need to be taken out of the filter chamber periodically. These are washed in fresh water and sun dried before refilling them back in the filter chamber.

Plastic Barrel system to safeguard the ground water!

Used plastic barrels method - low cost and simple option to effectively recharge ground water around a house*.

Rainwater from the roof of a building may be allowed to flow through a “PopUp Filter” to recharge ever dwindling ground water.

PopUp filter will remove floating elements and the silt present in the roof top rainwater.  Relatively cleaner water comes out of the filter and is allowed to flow into groundwater recharge gallery.

The groundwater recharge gallery is created by using used plastic oil/chemical barrels (blue coloured drums sold on the road side for construction activities etc.).

Process: Identify an open space around a building to create barrel system of infiltration gallery. Excavate earth to a depth of 6 ft. from the ground level. The width of excavated pit must be slightly more than the diameter of the plastic used oil barrel (around 1¾ ft. or 21 inches)

Length of the excavated pit must be equal to number of barrels used multiplied by diameter.  For example a four barrels infiltration gallery will have an excavated pit of 21 inch X 4 nos. = 84 inch or 7 ft. (length)

Procure the required number of plastic barrels (capacity about 200 ltr) and cut open one side of all the barrels.

Drill two holes, with diameter slightly more than that of rainwater down pipe (4 or 5 inch as the case may be) at the bottom end of the barrels on opposite sides. Install empty barrels, so prepared, in the pit with their cut open side facing downwards. Align all the barrels in one line with the side holes facing each other.  Insert a pipe of 12 inch length to interconnect two neighbouring barrels.

Guide the roof top rainwater pipe connected to the outlet of the Popup filter to the first barrel.  Connect a similar pipe as overflow to the last barrel and leave the outlet of this pipe to the drain outside the building. Make sure a cap with perforations is fitted to prevent rats or insects from entering the overflow pipe at the drain. Also make sure that the over flow pipe end is at a level above the normal water flow level in the drain. Fill up the excavated pit with soil leaving the barrels and the connecting pipes undisturbed. Once the soil over these barrels stabilizes, activities like gardening, cement flooring, light vehicle parking etc. can be taken up.

Rainwater flowing from the PopUp filter flows into these barrel system of infiltration gallery and recharges groundwater.

Many open wells and bore wells or tube wells have got a new lease of life after adopting the barrel system of infiltration.

* System developed by AR Shivakumar

Note: Barrel system should not be tried in the areas with very low porosity in the soil (black cotton soil), place where the water table is already high and places with hard rocky ground with shallow soil cover.

CONNECT storm water drain to MOTHER earth

“CONNECT storm water drain to MOTHER Earth”

City storm water drains to recharge ground water!

The drain in front of your house can harvest precious rainwater and recharge ground water.

Ground water is exploited beyond the limits and is declining in alarming speed in our cities. Simple interventions can reverse the trend.

Create a rainwater recharge trench in front of your house:

Open up one of the stone slab at the bottom of the storm water drain.

Dig a pit of rectangular shape to a depth of one meter or 3 feet.

Fill the trench with pebbles or stones or aggregates or broken bricks to 2 ft depth.

Add a layer of smaller stones or aggregates (Jelli) for a depth of 6 inches over the pebbles.

Place a mosquito net over the layer of small stones.

Fill the balance top portion of the trench with river bed coarse sand.

Rainwater from the road, from your house or from your neighbours will flow in to the trench and the sand will arrest all the silt before the rainwater percolate in to the ground. Once in a while the sand layer may be removed, washed in water to takeout all the silt and relayed to activate.

A very effective and low cost option to harvest rainwater for ground water recharge.

Imagine if in front of ever house or every other house, this trench is built and rainwater is allowed to percolate in to the ground, how quickly will the bore wells / tube wells get recharged?

Can we bring in a change?

Do your bit for our society!

It is inexpensive and needs your will to address.

Enjoy your WALK on a footpath which also harvests precious RAINWATER!

Can our footpaths be porous?

Harvest rainwater through your walk paths.

In Bangalore, a kilometer of walk path with porous pavements has a potential to harvest 30 lakh liter of rainwater per year. With moderate percolation efficiency of 75%, around 15 families of Bangalore can depend entirely on recharged ground water all through the year.

Can we bring in this change?

Porous foot paths are cheaper to build and easy to maintain compared to conventional foot paths.

How much rainwater can you collect from your building roof?

Rainwater potential from your house roof

Roof area in sq. m.   -  A

Annual Rainfall of the place in mm - R

Potential of Rainwater that can be Harvested

  = Area X Rainfall = A X R = …… liter

or

 Roof area in sq. ft.  -  a

Annual Rainfall of the place in inches - r

Potential of Rainwater that can be Harvested

  = Area X Rainfall = a X r X 2.36 = ….. liter

Example - For a house in Bangalore:

Roof area in sq. m.   -  100 
Annual Rainfall of the place in mm (Annual rain fall in mm for Bangalore) - 1000
Potential of Rainwater that can be Harvested
  = Area X Rainfall = 100 X 1000 = 1,00,000 liter
or
 Roof area in sq. ft.   -  500 
Annual Rainfall of the place in inches (Annual rain fall in inches for Bangalore) - 40

Potential of Rainwater that can be Harvested
  = Area X Rainfall = 500 X 40 X 2.36 = 47,200 liter