Rain is a free resource of which we have not made the best use of. According to a research done by Drexel University, cities such as Seattle, New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago might be able to reduce 100% of their municipal water consumption thanks to the heavy amount of rain they receive each year.
How can this be?
According to the study, toilet flushing is the biggest use of water in households in the United States, accounting for nearly 1/3rd of potable water use. Today, we are using this clean, treated, municipal water to flush our toilets and there’s no reason why this should be done when rainwater could do the exact same job.
There has been plenty of people developing systems to catch rain for multiple uses but not for toilet flushing, and today, researchers are finding a way to make this water catching process systematically in urban areas in order to ease stresses on watersheds, drainage infrastructure, distribution systems and potable water treatment. They will be testing in the 4 previously mentioned main cities to see if the project is feasible and also to forecast what effects this could have on the water supply and demand, on business environment and also if it will cause stormwater runoff in those cities. “Taking into consideration the cities’ annual rainfall patterns, residential population and roof areas, the team calculated that, with enough water storage capacity — a little more than a standard 1,000-gallon home storage tank — a three person family in a home with the city’s average roof size would have enough water to cover over 80 percent of its flushes throughout the year simply by diverting their downspouts to collect stormwater.”
I believe this is a great initiative, specially because it involves the government’s support and when this happens, the model could be more easily implemented in other countries in the world. It is great that people are finding this huge gaps where we can reuse water in a convenient but also massive way so it creates a bigger and faster positive impact. What I’m skeptical about is the fact that in order to make this huge change, every household toilet system will need to be changed and I wonder how much pipe waste this will generate and also how much material will be used to create the new systems to be implemented for this to work. Hopefully, researchers will find a way in which actual pipes don’t need to be switched, but just modified, and also production of materials needed to make this systems won’t damage the environment and are will be made of recyclable materials as well.
This blog post caught my eye because a few summers ago my dad installed a rain collection system on our roof, which we now use the water for watering our large garden in the summer. After seeing how easy this was of a solution for my family, I agree that this should be implemented for more everyday uses, such as flushing toilets. However, I also agree that this is going to require a large systemic and infrastructure change for homes, apartments, and even commercial properties. Something that we came up against when trying to install our simple collection system of three large bins was the cost. I think that if local/provincial governments helped to subsidize the transition into recycled water, it would create not only a precedent, but an incentive! Your point about the construction materials is important, and if this indeed becomes a trial project, should be a key point for the designers, engineers, architects, and business people behind the project. This is an exciting project to keep an eye on because in the future making these changes will be much less of a choice, and more of a requirement as our resources dwindle.
I liked your post, Pamela! Great food for thought, that so much of our water usage could be sustained with rainwater. It really prompts the question – are our present systems working optimally; and should we change the present systems for a more efficient future?
It’s reassuring to know that brilliant minds are motivated to better our water consumption models, and present groundbreaking ideas in the face of criticism. I too am, however, skeptical about the present practicality of these propositions. It’s very well to say that we could enact change by implementing new technologies, but we must also consider who will absorb the cost. It has already been argued that consumers can be apathetic to the sustainable missions of companies – applying this belief to the rainwater technologies, what would suggest that layman households would be willing to adopt possibly costly technologies? A really thought provoking topic, thanks for sharing!