Forrest_Wheatey What is our most precious resource on Earth? Diamonds? Oil? Human souls? Nope, it is freshwater. Despite being 71% of Earth’s surface, only 3% of the world’s water is in this human-friendly structure. Have in mind that most of it is in the form of ice floating around the poles. Global Warming won’t help us when it melts it, so this makes freshwater something to think for shortly.
As you can see we pretty much waste most of the water we use in our homes. Why? Because we can. But that is bound to change sooner or later and one must think of a more convenient use of this resource.
There are a few techniques that let you harvest unused fresh water and to put it to maximum use. A technique such as rainwater harvesting.
This is the simple process of harvesting water from rainfalls. It is illegal in some places, where rainfall is less often, and the water sources are privately owned, but if you’re from the UK or anywhere else where it’s legal it can actually save you off the water bill. Also, you’ll gain an independent secondary water source after implementing a rainwater harvesting system in your property.
What every rainwater harvesting system consists of is four key components. A catchment area, most usually your roof, to catch all the rain. The bigger it is, the more water it will catch. The storage unit where you keep the rainwater is usually a system of one or several tanks or cisterns. The conveyance system is what transfers the water from the catchment area to the storage unit. This, naturally, is your gutters and downspouts. And lastly, you have to have a distribution system to .. well .. distribute that water. It can be something as simple as a water can or as complicated as a pipe system connected with your sink and shower.
If you’ve paid attention to the first picture, there is a fact that says “95% of the water we use ends up down the drain”. That is a very significant percentage, and surely there is some part of that water that is still good to be used? Well, the usable part of the water is called grey water, and we do have a way of recycling it.
It is called greywater recycling and it’s the process of re-harvesting that 95 % that are still usable for household purposes. Without sophisticated filtration, greywater shouldn’t be used for human consumption but it can be used for various other chores such as laundry, gardening and toilet use.
Combined, these two methods can and will ensure your water from your home, independent from any public source. If you want to read more about the topic, follow the source on this gutter cleaning blog.
