Living with Your Own Ideas¶
In the middle of the cities we don’t grow vegetables or we don’t need to collect rain water. We are buying the food and water, two most important thing for living. And generally, we are not careful about the consumption. We waste so much water that we can use secondary purposes. It’s called gray water.
How many litre of water I waste each day?
How many litres can I reuse?
Do I have a chance (need) to use the water that I am planning to collect secondarily?
There are systems that we can easily install our houses in order to save and use this gray water to waste less water and use the water sources efficiently.
On the other hand, it’s possible to be more cautious and responsible on water consumption without installing systems on our homes by changing our daily habits and detergents and shampoos that we use. Even we can use the water comes out from washing machine or shower second time by using bio compatible products. We can collect this gray water by keeping a plastic container next to sink we use in the kitchen and bathroom.
The gray water can be used for watering the plants (indoor or outdoor) or for cleaning. But, it is essential to think on usage scenarios of the gray water in advance, because it could be possible to be run out of container or to feel desperate with so much water.
So the system of saving-collecting and reusing the gray water has to be designed personally. For instance; I have a terrace full of plants. They need to be watered regularly. So I informed my flatmates not to water them in the early morning. Also there was an unexpected water cut because of the maintenance and I washed the vegetables and fruits with the water that I collected in the shower.
While I started to collect the water that I waste normally, I was able to see how much water I waste in a single day. As the 5 liters of bottles started to filled up, that gains a visual reality while it used to be just a concept. This visual distraction also leads me to be more cautious about my own water consumption.
To sum up this challenge I can ask some questions;
Why I am doing that? Watering my plants, saving money, to tell my friends how environmentally responsible I am… What is my motivation? But what can motivate the other citizens to collect their gray water?