Reinvent and Redesign!!!

This exercise has made me realize few very important things besides the obvious fact of water conservation and water reuse.

It made me think about the disconnect between our present and future. And that, we HAVE to look beyond today to realize what is good for us tomorrow. I will always be an avid supporter of the two principals that I think I learned from this personal exercise- 

1. We have to reinvent the products that we use , not for just one product life but for the second or a third one too. I hope in future we can have soaps or body wash, that are not hazardous to us and our environment. I hope a simple filtration system is really enough to reuse our bath water for the plants. The ingredients that are not harmful for our skin are in fact the nutrients for the plants that they wont have to filter out. 

2.Using a home-made filter is definitely an eye opener, but it is most certainly not sufficient for the current times. We have to redesign our systems to  incorporate the technology for "recycle and reuse"  from the very beginning!

That is how, according to me,  we can claim to be "technologically advanced" species. 

consumption-easy, conservation...hmmm...not so easy!

Until now my life was easy. 

I have always used water with utmost care. We have a low flow-flush toilets in our apartments. And the water saving shower head. We mostly take showers than long baths. We keep turning the tap off while brushing the teeth, water our small patio garden only as much needed. And then we realized this was never going to be enough!

The project challenged me with an opportunity to take the water conservation to the next level! What is better than using water carefully? Re-using it! Conservationists have always insisted on recycling and reusing our grey water. Water that we use once for bathing, cooking and dish or clothes washing. Water that we can not drink,  but can certainly use for other purpose, such as flushing the toilets, gardens, washing cars, etc. 


Fact is we can not use this water without at least being filtered once.Good news is its not all that difficult! Researching, reading and building the sand- gravel water filter has been quite educational for me. What I realized was - that was not the hard part at all! The hard part was to use it!


I am not going to lie about how ridiculously inconvenient it is to collect the bath/shower water. To pour it mug by mug into the water filter and keep doing so till the sufficient amount of water is filtered to save at least one flush of potable water. If an average water consumption for a five minutes shower is approximately ten gallons, we should be able to save a number of flushes a day, but due to the water storage problem, lets just say we do manage to save at least two flushes everyday!


Does not look like a lot at this time, however,  I am a firm believer that EVERY SMALL ACTION MATTERS and that is sufficient enough for me to keep going on, for now.