Ways to Save Water

Every living being needs water. Our bodies are made of almost 70% water.

However, we are starting to face a water crisis, because of wastage & overuse of water resources. Saving water is essential and needed for us, and many more generations to come. In this article, we will discuss several ways to save water.

Some ways to save water-

1. Avoid taking a shower, use a bucket and a mug while bathing instead
2. Turn off the tap while brushing or shaving
3. Switch to using a water purifier rather than RO
4. Save water in toilet commodes.

1. Avoid taking a shower, use a bucket and a mug while bathing instead

When we take a shower, we don’t know how much water is wasted, as it just keeps flowing. If we use a bucket, only limited water is used, this amount of water wasted is limited.

While using a bucket, we are conscious of how much water we are using. This helps in reducing water wastage. We can also reduce the amount of water we use while using a bucket.

	Shower	Bath (with bucket)
10 minute	75-80 litres	Average ~20 litres
5 minute	40 litres	Average  ~15 litres

Source

The above table shows that the amount of water used is 3-4 times lesser when we are using a bucket, as compared with taking a shower.

2. Turn off the tap while brushing or shaving

This is something that every one of you must have heard. Even though many would have started doing it by now, some people might have thought, “What is the big deal? It is only flowing for a few minutes, right?”

Yes, it is only flowing for a few minutes. That is the problem. A running tap wastes 6 litres per minute!

	2 minutes	5 minutes	10 minutes
Water wasted	12 litres	30 litres	60 litres

So as you can see, running water while brushing and shaving can waste a lot of water, even in a few minutes!

3. Switch to using a water purifier instead of a RO

Reverse Osmosis (RO) machines  waste a lot of water, as their membrane technology requires more water to purify the water. The water used is thrown away as wastewater. Also, it is said that, for every 1 litre of water, more than 3 litres of water are wasted!

ROs need electricity to run and are also costlier. Also, it needs running water to maintain the proper pressure.

It wastes a lot of water and filters several important minerals. Its filtration speed is very low too.

They need a lot of maintenance and need to be fixed from time to time, which adds to their cost.

There are various types of membrane filters, the main ones being:

1. Micro Filter (MF) – not recommended as it does not shield against viruses
2. Ultra Filter (UF) – shields against viruses but lets important minerals to pass-through; does not require electricity; no water wastage
3. Nano Filter (NF) –Blocks some ions and minerals to pass; wastes water;requires electricity
4. Reverse Osmosis (RO) – It filters all the healthy minerals; wastes water;requires electricity

The advantages of Ultrafiltration (UF) membrane include:

• It does not waste any water and its speed is much faster than that of an RO too.
• It retains minerals important for our body in the water.
• It does not use electricity and chemicals and has a long life span. Also, it can operate under low pressure too.
• It can purify muddy water also, which other purifiers cannot.

Reverse Osmosis	Ultrafiltration
Requires a storage tank because of slow filter speeds	Filters one gallon of water per minute
Converts four out of every five gallons into wastewater	Produces no waste
Needs minimum a minimum of 50 psi to function properly	Operates smoothly under low pressure

Then what is the solution? A nano-filter-based water purifier. Designed by my dad, the co-founder of Greenspirits.in and costing only about a fourth of an RO, its efficiency is a total of 100%, which means that it does not waste any water!

The UF based water filter is shown below :

4. Save water in toilet commodes.

In the process of flushing the toilet commode, gallons of water are wasted. There is a trick which can be used to save water from being flushed down the toilet (literally !)

You will need some half or 1-litre mineral water bottles. Empty soda bottles or any other plastic bottles will also work. You can put these plastic bottles inside the flush of the toilet commode, as shown in the picture below. This way, the volume required for operating the flush every time is reduced, and you can save upto 40 litres every day and more than 14,000 litres per year!

Also if a tap is leaking and/or is not working properly, it must be fixed as leaking taps can waste a lot of water just by dripping for an hour! If taps, pipes etc. are not working properly, more water could be wasted. So you should always keep your bathroom up-to-date by calling the plumber regularly.

Be conscious of water usage in your home, school office etc. One way is to make a water diary. It is a daily record of the amount of water used. Keeping this record makes you understand the amount of water that can be saved, total consumption etc.