Slippery situation: Is recycling a solution to Goa's water woes? (ToI)

Slippery situation: Is recycling a solution to Goa's water woes? Anisha Francis, TNN | Jul 9, 2013, 01.15 AM IST PANAJI: Twelve litres of water go swirling down the drain every time you flush the toilet. If you have a modern dual-flush system, you flush away between 4 and 8 litres of water. Multiply this into the number of times you answer nature's call in a day, and then into the number of people in your home. If you're up to it, whip out a calculator and do the math for the entire population of the state of Goa, and the number that comes up would be mind-boggling. If water was money, maybe your bowel movements would be considered party to a scam. But water is money, argues chief town planner S T Puttaraju. "Anybody who shells out thousands of rupees to buy tanker loads of water, or even cans of drinking water, would tell you that. Goa may be a water-surplus state, but years of mismanagement of the resource have left many areas water-starved," he says. Ask Caranzalem resident Kamala, a migrant who lives with her family of six, in a two-room house. "Even when it is pouring outside in the month of July, and the tarpaulin on our roof is leaking, our taps are dry. There is water supply between 5 and 5.30am, during which we have to fill up as many buckets and pots as possible. Some days, even the morning supply is cut off," she says. It isn't just the migrants and slum-dwellers who have to count every drop of water they use. When Puttaraju took over as president of the society of a posh complex that houses the town and country planning department in Patto Plaza, it was spending over 60,000 a month on tanker loads of water. A closer look revealed a gross wastage of the resource-not only by restaurants in the complex, but even by offices. "The commodes were constantly leaking, taps were dripping," says Puttaraju, who had to crack the whip and install water metres to measure usage. The next step was to get the faulty plumbing fixed, and voila, the society saves 20,000 in water every month. In residential complexes, the scope for conserving water is even greater with a waste water recycling plant in place, especially since it accomplishes two tasks in one stroke-it conserves freshwater and also solves the problem of sewage disposal. "It is mandatory that every project with minimum of 25 to 40 units, (commercial or residential) in Goa, incorporates waste water recycling, helping save up to 60% of freshwater. Existing buildings and individual houses could also adopt filtration and recycling systems on a smaller scale," says Puttaraju. "In Singapore, waste water and even sewage is recycled, purified and used for drinking purposes. For us, it would be psychologically difficult to drink reclaimed wastewater, but we can still make use of it for other activities," he says. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/goa/Slippery-situation-Is-recycling-a-solution-to-Goas-water-woes/articleshow/20978756.cms