WATER AERATORS REDUCE WATER USE SUBSTANTIALLY

There is nothing more essential to life on earth than water. From Cape Town in South Africa to Asia’s teeming mega cities, the world is in the midst of a huge water crisis. This film and blog talks about how putting water aerators in taps helps to reduce water use by almost 60 percent per tap. In these water stressed times, this simple and cost effective solution should be implemented in every home, institution and office complex across the globe.

Key Attributes of Water Aerators

Size: They mostly come in 3 sizes (16 mm, 20 mm, 24 mm).

Shape: They mostly come in round shape but some designer faucets are rectangular and square too.

Type: They help dispense water in 3 forms (mist, spray, foam).

Flow rate: They have varied flow rates ranging from 2 litres per minute to 30 litres per minute.

How Does One Know Which Type of Aerator to Buy?

Sunil Pachar, Sustainability Consultant who supplies water aerators to individuals, residential communities, corporates and institutions says that aerators must be chosen on the basis of the purpose for which the tap is used. Aerators for wash basins, kitchen sinks, showers are all different. Size of the aerator can be measured by measuring the dimension of the outlet of the tap which your local plumber can help you with. The most common size in case of the bathroom wash basin and the kitchen sink is 24 mm.

People can easily save 20-25% of fresh water in their homes or places of work just by using aerators as per the below recommended specifications:

Wash basins: Spray type aerator with flow rate of 1-4 litres per minute (lpm) as hands can be comfortably washed at this speed.

Dish washing: Foam type aerator with flow rate of 5-10 litres per minute as washing utensils needs more water as compared to washing hands.

Bath showers: Spray type aerator with flow rate of 9-10 litres per minute.

Jet sprays: Spray type aerator with flow rate of 2-5 litres per minute.

Gardening: Spray type aerator with flow rate of 2-5 litres per minute.

Neoperl and Eco 365 are good quality aerator brands. You can order the aerators online keeping in mind the above specifications. Other brands can be sourced online and in local markets as well but quality could be an issue. I personally bought Neopearl water aerators (German based leading global brand) for all the taps in my home and they are working very efficiently. For those who use showers for bathing, please buy aerators for your showers as well. Sunil Pachar, Sustainability Consultant can be reached at sunil.pachar@ecolive.in for help in sourcing the water aerators.

Installing Water Aerators – Effective Water Saving Solution at the Community and Institution Level

You can convince your office management and community resident welfare organisation (RWA) to install water aerators in all the bathroom and kitchen sinks of your office and all the homes in your condominium / township respectively. Raman Chawla, RWA President of Ireo Grand Arch in Gurgaon city says, “Ireo Grand Arch condominium, located off Golf Course Extension Road in Gurgaon is home to 700 families. We have been dependent on getting water from tankers every day as the municipality water lines only meet about 10-40 percent of our total water needs as supply is very erratic. At current consumption levels, residents pay a sum of INR 0.52 per sq ft for water use which works out to about INR 1200 per month for an average size 3 bedroom apartment. As part of the strategy that we devised to reduce our condominium’s water use, our RWA decided to use funds from our corpus to install water aerators in the kitchen and bathroom sinks of all the flats. This simple step of installing water aerators has helped to bring down overall water use per household by 20-25% in Ireo Grand Arch. Buying in bulk reduces the price of the aerators significantly. Our RWA paid INR 80-85 per water aerator for a leading German brand called NeoPearl that we purchased from Mr. Sunil Pachar, Sustainability Consultant who helps condominiums and institutions in doing a water audit and then helps them devise a strategy to reduce their water footprint, build ground water recharge structures etc.”

Feedback

For any comments, feedback or clarifications on this blog, please write to the author Neelam Ahluwalia at this email id: healingourcities1@gmail.com

Other Water Blogs & Films on this Website

https://healingourcities.org/2020/04/14/impact-of-ro-water-filters-on-human-health-and-indias-water-crisis/

https://healingourcities.org/2020/04/27/recycling-grey-water-in-homes-natures-way/

https://healingourcities.org/2020/04/28/rain-water-harvesting-and-recharge-at-home-level/

https://healingourcities.org/2020/04/06/water-rich-homes/

https://healingourcities.org/2020/02/23/water-rich-communities/

https://healingourcities.org/water-management/