Drip by drip
“I had a kitchen garden on my terrace. Last summer, it perished completely,” says Ranjani Thomas, a resident of Nandanam Extension.
Considering the water crisis in Chennai, she decided to find a solution on her own. Based on the principle of drip irrigation, she recycles RO water to water the plants on her kitchen window sill.
“About two litres of water from the RO plant is being wasted every day. So, I divert this water and distribute it equally among plants through a tube connecting the filter. This way, the water is recycled instead of being allowed into the drainage,” she says. Taking drip irrigation to the next level, she has installed a drip irrigation system at home to water the ornamental plants in her front yard.
- Shiba Kurian
***
A green move
At Jains Inseli Park, Padur, practising yoga in their community garden is also the time for bird watching, thanks to the micro-filtered water from the Sewage Treatment Plant on the campus.
Since one year ago, Inseli Park Owners Association has been watering the community garden using filtered water from the STP. M. Vijayalakshmi, a resident, says, “Our lawn is often filled with so much filtered water that it attracts many birds early in the morning. We can see around 30 flock at the lawn.”
Though the builder had provided the conventional STP, association secretary Shivaramesh Jonnadula, who is keen on water conservation, had proposed the idea of having a micro-filter. “Such a facility requires effort and money. residents or owners must be willing to take responsibility for it. There are many vendors who can help provide and fix micro-filters,” says Vijayalakshmi. The Association is also trying to recirculate the filtered STP water into flush tanks as a water conservation measure.
- Shiba Kurian
***
Solution in a pit
Last summer, residents of Vikram’s Nest, Vinayagam Street, Mandaveli, had to buy from tankers, as the borewells had dried up completely. It cost us dearly every month. This year, we decided to find a permanent solution.
Under the supervision of Sekar Raghavan, director of Rain Centre, we constructed a rainwater recharge well as the existing rainwater harvest facility will not be able to recharge the borewell. The new 3 feet-wide and 15 feet-deep well will collect rainwater from rooftops and harvest it effectively, thereby recharging the borewell and groundwater table in a few years. The recharge well will be used as an open well in due course.
As Raghavan told us, if all the apartments in the neighbourhood replicate this, there will be a significant increase in the water table in a short period. And if such recharge pits are constructed on roads, it will help harvest rainwater, solving the problem of water stagnation and avoiding the enormous amount of rainwater getting into the stormwater drainage and reaching the sea without being useful.
- Shivkumar, a resident of Mandaveli
***
The bag banks
The Abhiramapuram Neighbourhood Residents’ Association recently led a week-long campaign urging shoppers to bring their own bags and not accept fresh bags from vendors. As a follow-up and to keep the momentum going, we put up ‘bag-banks’ at the entrances of vegetable and grocery shops in the neighbourhood.
Besides, we collected used bags that were in good condition from residents and placed them in cartons that read, ‘Need a bag? Take one’ and ‘Have extra bags? Drop here’. The idea is to circulate shopping bags, hoping to create a habit among shoppers to stop asking for plastic bags at shops.
Anyone may take a bag from a carton and anyone may drop off bags into the cartons too. To sustain this initiative, we hope both vendors and shoppers will co-operate. We hope the sustained effort will translate into a system that does not require shops to store bags at all.
- Sushi Natraj, a resident of Abhiramapuram
***
A new ball game
Recently, the NGO Vanavil organised a workshop on seed ball-making for the children of La Celeste, a gated community in Porur, at a Corporation park.
The NGO, consisting mainly of residents from the gated community and other residents of Porur, helped 50 children prepare around 500 seed balls. They were then asked to drop or throw these earth balls wherever they came across barren lands.
According to Geetha Jawahar, a resident and member of the NGO, last year, around 600 seed balls were prepared at a similar workshop.
“As it is not easy to buy seeds of native plants, we collected seeds through the year from the trees and its surrounding areas. We also collected and sun-dried seeds from fruits such as chikoo and jamun, to use them in seed balls,” she says.
- Shiba Kurian
***
Take them under your wing
It is the time of the year when little winged and four-legged creatures visit our homes to take shelter from the heat. This year, they have arrived earlier than usual. It is said that birds know when the climate changes.
As usual, I have started the summer practice of keeping bowls of water for the winged visitors to let them drink from it.
Until last year, we kept a small pot on our terrace. We kept it on the floor instead of the parapet on the terrace, as this would lead to the bowl being pushed down.
However, this year, my wife, who generally feeds crows and pigeons with crushed biscuits and some food, decided to try something new. She prepared a small reusable container and made holes in it to tie it to the window sill.
- C.R. Balaji, a civic activist and a resident of Mandaveli
***
It's trough love here
Last year, when Sivaganasundari S., a resident of Yamuna Street, Balaji Nagar in East Tambaram, lost her five-year-old dog, she wanted to help other dogs, as a way of honouring the memory of her own.
The 41-year-old working professional built a small cement watering trough right outside her house to let strays drink water from and also take a dip if necessary.
Every morning, besides household chores, she cleans and fills the trough with water, before heading to work. She repeats the process when she returns home, in the evening and before going to bed.
“A dog, which has been named Appa Dog by residents of the neighbourhood, uses the trough as a swimming pool, every morning and evening,” says Sivaganasundari. In addition to dogs, cows and goats too drink water from the trough.
- Vidhya A.
