New Delhi. Water is life. Without water everything is useless. We have been hearing these things since childhood but it had a deep impact on 14-year-old Rishabh. To deal with the water crisis, Rishabh adopted such a trick that 70 lakh liters of water was saved in just one year. Not only this, the water bill in homes also reduced by 30 percent.
Rishabh Prasobh, a 14-year-old student of Class IX at National Academy for Learning, Bengaluru, has started a water mission. Under this, Rishabh installed ‘aerators’ in taps in two hotels, his school and his housing society. Aerators are small mechanical devices fitted in taps. They mix air with water and ensure that the flow of water coming out of the tap remains constant, no matter what the pressure is. If aerators are installed in taps that supply 15 litres of water per minute, it reduces the water supply to six litres per minute. These devices can save 1,274 litres of water in a month.
This is how the idea came
In 2019, Rishabh participated in a social initiative of ‘1 Million for 1 Billion’ (1M1B), an organization recognized by the United Nations. Here he studied various issues related to the environment. The Better India has published an article on this subject. Rishabh told the website that he read about many issues like air pollution, but water scarcity was a problem that he saw himself in Bengaluru. Many ponds are drying up here and many houses also have water problems. After this, to understand this problem at the ground level, Rishabh spoke to many organizations, activists and water-conservators of Bengaluru. He understood that with the increasing population, the demand for water is also increasing, but its supply is much less than the demand. Therefore, the only solution to this problem is to reduce water consumption.
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It is possible to save 3 to 4 liters of water per minute from the kitchen sink through aerator
When Rishabh did his research, he found that the best way to reduce water consumption at the household level is to fit an aerator to the water tap. Usually, our kitchen sink and bathroom taps release 6 liters of water per minute and an aerator can reduce this to 3 or 4 liters. To test this, Rishabh installed an aerator at his grandmother’s house in Bangalore. He could not install an aerator in his house because in his building, the water bill of 17 houses is combined and shared among all. In such a situation, he is not able to accurately estimate the water savings and reduction in bills.
Water bill at grandmother’s house reduced by 30 percent in just one month
According to Rishabh, within a month of fitting just one aerator, we saw a 30% reduction in the water bill of our grandmother’s house. Earlier, her bill used to be around Rs 340 but it came down to Rs 250. After this, he contacted the Residents Association of his housing society and gave this solution. Then two aerators were fitted in every apartment. Each house paid for the aerator, which cost around Rs 300 per unit. Rishabh says that within a year, the water consumption in the society reduced and 20 lakh liters of water was saved. After this, Rishabh contacted two Marriott hotels in Cochin, Kerala. Here too, both the hotels saved about 50 lakh liters of water in a year.
This year the target is to save one crore liters of water
On his success, Rishabh approached his school principal Indira Jayakrishnan. Rishabh’s idea has taken the school’s initiative further. In the year 2021, Rishabh is hoping to expand his initiative to more schools, hotels, cinemas and malls across the city. His aim is to help save one crore liters of water in the city.
Tags: conservation of water, Water Crisis
FIRST PUBLISHED : February 17, 2021, 18:37 IST