Water Recycling

By Santosh Saraf
It was a Saturday, a time to relax and unwind. But I was tensed because I had an essay
writing competition on Sunday and was preparing for it. I had read a particular passage and
was trying to write it on paper. I would try to recollect and at some point I would forget
everything and the page would be torn to shreds. With time I was getting more and more
tense and the pile of shredded paper started increasing. Well to find a reason I blamed it on
the small baby who was crying because he had soiled in his nappy. The mother of the baby
came and changed the nappy and discarded the same outside the house, now the baby was
silent I had none to blame. I then decided to go to a par nearby and try to prepare for the
competition, there I saw the garden being watered with water drawn from the bore well.
The water tap was leaing and some poor ids were trying to !uench their thirst the
gardener there shooed them away. Somehow I prepared and was ready for the
competition. I decide to head go home picing up some maga"ines from a store. There I
noticed a print that recycled paper was used to print the maga"ine. The print on the plastic
cover on the maga"ine mentioned that it was recycled plastic.
I was curious to now what was meant by recycling and did some googling and was
astonished to now that a lot of paper is wasted by either burning or discarding it in open.
Today, #$% of paper pulp is created from wood. &aper production accounts for about '(%
of felled trees. Recycling one ton of scrap paper saves about ) ton of wood while recycling )
ton of printing or copier paper saves slightly more than * tons of wood. It has been
estimated that recycling half the world+s paper would avoid the harvesting of *$ million
acres forest land. ,nergy consumption in producing new paper products is reduced by
recycling. -bout '(% of municipal solid waste .before recycling /by weight is paper and
paper products. &aper discarded in open would cause air pollution by bits and pieces flying
in air. It would tae * to 0 wees for the paper to decompose in the soil.
1n reading this I felt guilty of all the papers I had wasted in the afternoon. 1n probing
further I was surprised to read about plastic it taes )million years for glass bottle to
decompose and 0($ years for a diaper. I was wondering how many generations of the baby
would be seeing the discarded nappy.
Well two incidents of me wasting paper and aunty discarding the nappy had very bad
effects. I was also sad to see the poor ids not getting water to drin and felt that the
gardener should have allowed the children to !uench their thirst.
1nly *.(% of water is consumable, with one third fro"en in the form of glaciers and polar
ice. The water left for human use is roughly )% of the total water present. This )% is being
used to water plants, washing, irrigation and all other activities. So watering plants with
bore well water has to be rethought. 2ow do we use water at home 3
*#% of all the water consumed at homes is flushed out in the form of showers and hot
baths.
4 ) !uarter of all clean water is flushed in toilets.
4 (,($$ litres of water is wasted from dripping taps a year.
I probed for water recycling details and was happy to read about water recycling plants.
Recycling water is the use of treated and processed wastewater for useful purposes lie
agricultural irrigation, industrial processes, toilet flushing, and groundwater replenishment
which is also called a groundwater recharge.
Water recycling decreases the extraction of water form sources that may be dwindling and
may stop being viable as habitats for valuable and endangered wildlife.
Recycling wastewater can decrease the discharge of effluents that may damage and pollute
the ecosystems of the sensitive bodies of water.
Recycled water can be used to create new wetlands or to enhance and improve the !uality
of existing ones.
Water recycling can reduce and prevent pollution by leaving damaging pollutants at the
treatment plant.
So my friends let us use our resources carefully and help the local authorities with the
efforts.