Harvest your rain drops

You heard it before and you’ll hear it everyday. There is a very big problem of water everywhere. More and more water is taken from the ground. The ground water is not recharged enough. If there was 100 per cent of water under the ground level, now 30 per cent is left because of too little 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.To take an example, 70 per cent of drinking water supply of Delhi comes from the former-river-turned-drain known as Yamuna. Of this, 50 per cent leaks out on way to the water treatment plant. To get more pure water from your ground, you can capture rainwater. You can do water harvesting. Rainwater harvesting is not too costly. It costs from Rs 3000 to 30,000 to build a 300 sq mts facility for rainwater harvesting. A rainwater harvesting project has been started in BPCL housing complex. CSE office has a rainwater harvesting system. Rashtrapati Bhawan in New Delhi also conducts rainwater harvesting. This was started by our President, K.R. Narayanan. Everyone has to use rainwater harvesting to save water and to save life.In places with frequent rainfall like Mizoram and Kerala, rainwater is stored for ready use in containers above or below ground. In places like Delhi and Rajasthan where there is rainfall only for one month during the Monsoons, rainwater is allowed to drain into the soil (ground water recharging), but very little of it can be taken out of the soil again later.

Simar and Kiranpreet

Waste not Want not

A person produces approximately a tonne 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 6 billion! Have you ever spared a moment to ponder that where does such a huge amount of garbage go?

What's waste, you ask? Why? The next time you are on the road, look around and you will get the answer. The mounds of polythenes, rotting vegetables and people's excretement 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 therefore also 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 used 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. The sector - 12 Block Y and Z of Noida is no different. It boasts of mounds of rubbish amongst which pigs and dogs stray about. The Noida Authority has done nothing about it. The stench from the rubbish has become unbearable. The gutter in sector 56 (outside the BPCL colony) contains contaminated water with plastic bags floating on top. This is a clear picture of water pollution. Moreover, it attracts mosquitoes and other insects, which exposes the people to diseases like diarrhea etc. The factories around Sector 1 are said to take precautions about disposing the waste properly. Where?

Prachi