City flushes 30% of water down the toilet

Shalini Nair | TNN

Mumbai: Of the total water that is supplied to every household in Mumbai,
more than 30 % is flushed down its toilets. All it takes is a small,
one-time investment on a dual flush system and the city could end up saving
thousand of gallons every day.

    An average Mumbaiite uses up 45 litres in the toilet, thanks to outdated
flush tanks that use up 10-15 litres each time the lever is pulled. Multiply
this by a population of 12 million and the amount of precious water that
goes down the drains will leave you gasping.

    After attempts at getting people to recharge groundwater and use this
for flushing drew a weak response, BMC had issued a circular making it
mandatory for all buildings, constructed post March 2005, to have dual flush
systems. As opposed to a normal flush tank which releases 10-15 litres of
water each time, a dual flush tank has two separate levers. "One lever is
for releasing 5 lts water sufficient for urinals while the other is for 10
lts. Installing this will result in saving a lot of water per household,''
said Suprabha Marathe from the BMC's rainwater harvesting cell.

    While new buildings have been more or less complying with the rule - it
is a mandatory condition for getting a Occupation certificate - the rule is
not binding on old buildings.

    "All new building projects have been installing the new system; there is
no extra investment that the builder is required to make. Even old buildings
can change theirs to the dual system at minimal cost,'' said Vimal Shah,
thesecretary of Maharashtra Chamber of Housing Industry. He added that the
dual system has proved beneficial to new buildings as BMC has anyway reduced
the water supply to all post-2005 buildings from 135 litres per person to 90
lts per person.



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