Water

I do not think I need to explain how important water is to our day to day life. Without water we would perish and that is why until humans learnt to control the water supply all civilization was near water sources only.

As water has grown abundant in cities due to good infrastructure, many people have begun to forget its importance. I would not say I am completely innocent of this folly. Even I have sometimes let the tap drip for far longer because I could not call the plumber. I did not have to do anything other than just call (and later pay) the plumber so that he can fix the tap but I could not carve out the time for even that much out of my schedule and the tap kept leaking for much longer than it should have.

There are many things I have tried to fix though. I started this when my state was hit by a drought a few years back. We did not have water available for 24 hours and it became very important to use what we had carefully.

Here are some things I now do to save water:

1. While brushing keep the tap open very sparingly. Before, I used to turn on the tap and then wash the brush, put toothpaste on then again wash the toothpaste (don’t ask me why… it is inside the tube, it is not dirty.) and then finally close the tap. Then while washing my mouth the tap was left open even between gargles. Now, I turn on the tap wash the brush quickly and turn off the tap. Then while washing my mouth, the tap is only open while I am collecting water in my hand to wash my mouth. All other times it is off.  To represent it diagrammatically,  O=open C=close                      O – Wash brush – C    (O – Collect water in hand – C – Gargle, Spit) x 3
2. I used to use an entire bucket of water to bathe myself. But now I try to use only half a bucket if I have not done anything sweaty or dirty and a 3/4th otherwise. I definitely do not recommend showering with an overhead spout for bathing because so much water goes down the drain without even touching your dirty body. It’s a f* waste.
3. Even while washing the dishes I make an effort to close the tap every time I am not using water. I used to let it run and just bring the plates below it but it is a huge waste of good purified clean water.
4. Old drinking water in bottles must be emptied in plant pots or it can be used for many other purposes other than giving it a trip down the drain.

For now I cannot think of other ways to save water but try to save and reuse as much water as you can. Does the entire human race have to face droughts before we change our mindsets? Most of the countries who have the best water management practices have a scarcity of water. People bring about change when it is required and in this modern world, sharing of ideas has become very easy. Even if you feel that the government is not doing its best to implement good water management infrastructure and rules, you must do what you can and try to convince others to do the same. If every citizen makes an active effort to reduce water usage, we will have enough for all our needs.

One thing that happens in cities (Maybe not in all cities but I have seen this in a few) is that the the city provides good infrastructure or even simply provides water to those who can pay for it or the “good parts” of the city 24/7 but the “bad parts” often get water cuts and they have to travel for some distance to a municipal tap or buy water just so they can fulfill basic human needs. If all people who have water at all times do not overuse water, in the end there will be more water for everybody else.

One other thing I wanted to write about was usage of water in media but I think that it deserves a separate post so hope you read that as well.