Madam, – There is something quite illogical and extravagant about the way we manage water.
Rain falls on roofs and is channelled through underground pipes into a waterway, from where it is eventually captured in a reservoir before being subjected to expensive filtration and purification to render it drinkable.
It is then piped back to users through miles of leaking pipework, and when it arrives it supplies drinking-water to a single kitchen tap. The rest is piped into an attic tank where it immediately becomes undrinkable again.
An overhaul of the entire water treatment and supply system is essential. It makes no sense to gather millions of gallons of surface water and purify it to drinking quality only to lose almost half of it in defective pipes before it reaches users, and then for much of it to be rendered undrinkable again in attic tanks.
Consideration must be given to supplying water at below drinking quality for final purification at the users’ premises in quantities actually required for drinking.
This, combined with some modification of plumbing layouts in future buildings and the provision of local underground catchment tanks for rainwater, would eliminate the huge waste currently involved in purifying and distributing over four times the amount of water actually required for drinking purposes.
Recent TV reports in which people were pouring bottles of expensive water into toilet cisterns when their homes were surrounded by snow seem to make the case for improved information with regard to water-saving options.
It’s time for some thinking outside the tank. – Yours, etc,
Madam, Instead of proceeding with the proposed incinerator for Dublin, I suggest we build a desalination plant to provide the east coast with abundant fresh water.
The only issue is – what would we do with the salt mountain left over? – Yours, etc,