Harvest your rain drops
You heard it before you hear it everyday. There is a very big problem of water everywhere. More and more water is withdrawn from ground and no recharging is done. If there was 100% of water under the ground level, now 30% is left because no recharging. When we reach such low levels, the quality of water becomes inferior. Water harvesting is the process of collecting rainwater and storing it for direct use or recharging it into ground water.

Take an example, 70% of drinking water supply of Delhi comes from the former river turned drain known as Yamuna. Of this, 50% leaks out on way to the water treatment plant. To get more pure water from your ground, you can catch the rain water. You can do water harvesting. Rainwater harvesting is not too much costly. If you want to use rainwater harvesting, it will cost from Rs 3000 to 30000, for 300 sq mts.

In BPCL housing complex also, a rainwater harvesting project has started. CSE office has a rainwater harvesting system. Rashtrapati Bhawan in New Delhi also got rainwater harvesting. It was started by president, K.R. Narayanan. Everyone has to use rain water harvesting to save water to save life.

In places with frequent rainfall like Mizoram and Kerala, rain water is stored for ready use in containers above or below ground. In places like Delhi and Rajasthan where there is rainfall only during one month of monsoon, rain water is charged into soil for withdrawal later (ground water recharging).

A person produces approximately a ton of waste during a period of 10 years or so. It is left to you to imagine what a great amount of waste is produced by the whole world's population of about 60 crore billions! Have you ever spared a moment to ponder that where does such a huge amount of garbage go to?

What's waste, you are asking? Why? The next time you are on road look around and you will get the answer. The mounds of polythenes, rotting vegetables and people's shit lying near the pavements are waste. Plastics and other synthetic materials lie around. Sometimes animals tend to chew dangerous substances and choke on them resulting in their death. Metallic refuse lying around may hurt us by physically piercing our feet.

As you know, a large of part of garbage consists of toxic materials, which affect the air, water and consequently us. One major solution to all these problems is recycling. Plastic is a very harmful substance. It is better if we use biodegradable materials as they decompose easily. Kitchen waste should be utilised for making compost by the vermicompost method. Plastic bags and containers can be used for storage purposes. Few people actually have adapted these ways of disposal. A majority of the population find it more convenient to dump waste into water bodies or to burn it.