City’s online communities join hands for water conservation

As Chennai’s taps continue to run dry, social media has become the medium and a dominant voice bearing ingenious tips by residents, conservation activists and bloggers to share videos for saving water at home. From collecting water from each wash into a container for reuse in the toilet flushes, collecting eliminated water from purifiers for plants to cutting down the number of hair washes by using dry shampoo — the ideas to save water on social media are aplenty right now. As the city stares at a likely ‘day zero’ ahead, these digital communities are coming together to help people reduce their water usage.

Fifty-four-year-old Prema Ramachandran, who along with her daughter, Neeraja, runs a YouTube channel named ‘Nees Kitchen’, recently posted a video on repurposing water used in a kitchen. The viral video garnered thousands of views within a week’s time. “Water conservation must begin right from the time we wake up and brush our teeth. Instead of allowing the taps to run, one needs to switch to using water from a mug for daily brushing — which brings down water usage significantly. Sticking to bathing from a bucket is very necessary, as showers consume a lot of water. The purpose of the video was to demonstrate that with simple efforts, one can cut down a lot of water,” Prema tells us.

Through her video, she shows that water used for hand washes, or to clean rice, can be collected into a bucket and repurposed for usage in toilets. Prema also shows the water that is eliminated from the reverse osmosis (RO) purifiers and air conditioners can be collected for using in washing machines. Of the water consumed by a household on a daily basis, nearly 85 per cent is estimated to be spent on showers and bathing, toilet flushing and laundry. Cooking, drinking and cleaning, on the other hand, are a meagre 15 per cent. Beauty bloggers are actively using Instagram to promote the usage of dry shampoos and cutting down salon visits to save water.

City-based Alladi Mahadevan, whose pro-nature initiative Green Embryo helps people with water conservation and organic plant growing techniques, recently started an online forum named ‘Water’. The platform grew to be 1,500 members-strong in no time, and bustles with posts from residents across the city offering solutions from around the world to use water cautiously and reuse it whenever possible. “Through the platform, we are sharing many solutions to using water wisely. The three-level solution we suggest includes making sure that the sources of water (taps, showerheads) are not leaking, using water cautiously and reusing the water. We are also suggesting the methods of phytoremediation, which uses living plants to clean up contaminated water,” says Mahadevan.

Biodiversity conservationist Kokilashree A suggests using bioenzyme cleaners (cleaning solutions using fermented fruits or vegetables) so as to keep the little fresh water available to us chemical-free. “Given the crisis we are facing, it is better to use natural cleaners, which are also helpful in cutting down the amount of water required for cleaning,” she adds.