Sustainable living ------Water

Sustainable living-----------Water                  12/6/2013

        There are 3 most  precious and indispensible items / elements /gems in life.   Water is one of them.  Water is “god and gold” to me.  So I always treat water with a lot of respect and care.  I try my best to recycle, save and collect water whenever I can. 

        I cook 2 times a day: breakfast and dinner.  So, I have quite a lot of dishes and pots to wash for 2 meals.  Well, I always soak the dishes, rice cooker and cooking pots first in the recycled water.  Then I clean and rinse them with the recycled water before I wash them in the basin with clean water from the tap.  The water in the basin is kept for recycling.  Ng …….. I might need 2-3 basins of water to wash all the dishes, big and small as well as rice cooker and cooking pots. Oh, ya, I also hot water clean my dishes, chopsticks, spoons, rice cooker and cooking pots.  And this water is also kept for recycling.

        The water that I use for washing vegetables and fruits will be collected for recycling.  I hope one day I can collect water from the rooftop.

        When I recycle water, I save water and that means I save $, too.  Saving water to me is more than water bill.   I see that less water used in each household means less energy required for water treatment as a whole.  It is a great way to save our Mother Earth together.   

        Ya, I machine wash all my clothes and of course, I only start the machine when the clothes have piled up to 60%-70% of the tub to be washed with the full volume of water.  But for table rags, floor rags and garden gloves,  I start when the pile is about 40% with half a volume of water. 

         I use one milk scoop of soap powder stirred in water before I pour into the tub.  Then I soak the clothes in soap water for about half an hour. 

        So far, I have not been able to collect water from the washing machine as it is not easy to do.  You have to keep the level lower than the discharge or the water will be sucked back and be recycled by the machine. 

        I  mop my kitchen almost every day and other places once a week.  So, I don’t use much water for mopping.  My husband washes his cars (the company car and his new car) once a week.  I seldom wash my car.  I mainly  rely on rainwater to wash the outer part of the car and the inner part, well………..once in a blue moon (too lazy to wash/clean the car regularly ).  I collect rainwater for my poultry.  I only resort to tap water when the rainwater has run out. 

        My husband and my son only take a bath once a day and I bathe 2 times a day.

For all these activities, we only spend RM 9 – 10 a month in average.   I believe there are people who use less than this amount.  If the amount of water used is grouped into 10 based on the RM:  Group 1 RM5 and below;  Group 2 RM6 -10; Group 3 RM 11-15;  Group 4 RM 16 – 20;  Group 5 RM21 -30;  Group 6 RM31- 50; Group7 RM 51- 80; Group 8 RM 81- 110; Group 9 RM 111- 150; Group 10 RM151 – 200 /more.  If they are expressed in %, I wonder how many are in each range.