on the way to the North Norfolk Coast Earth Day

On the way to the North Norfolk Coast Earth Day at Deepdale Farm today a programme on Radio 4 about the protracted drought in Australia showed how the Australians are becoming world leaders in rainwater conservation and harvesting. It’s clear that the drought has really focused the minds of Australians and in part contributed to the overturn of John Howard’s government, who steadfastly refused to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol.

Whatever the predictions of climate change I don’t believe that here in the UK we will be forced to address water conservation as acutely as the Australians. That doesn’t mean we should ignore efforts to be more efficient in our use of water; it ludicrous that we go to great lengths treating our water only to flush significant volumes of it down our toilets.

Travelling to Deepdale Farm brought back memories of building the Scolt Head Island Ternery Hut for English Nature. We installed a  rainwater harvesting system to provide water for showering and washing up. Four 1520litre linked ex-orange juice containers were linked together; the water pumped on demand by a 12V pump powered by PV panels on the roof. The rainwater was filtered by an in-line Wisy downpipe filter.

The largest rainwater harvesting system that I installed was at Pinetrees where we installed an 8000litre underground tank that provided filtered rainwater for 5 toilets and a washing machine.

If it’s new build it makes sense to consider incorporating some kind of rainwater harvesting / water recycling system. For those of us in existing buildings we’ve got to have the spare cash and motivation to retro-fit a system. Of course installing a rain water butt is not onerous and there are measures we can take to reduce our water demand – when we decide to revamp our bathrooms ultra low flush toilets can be installed. But then at some point all toilets will have to be  ultra low flush. And that’s the thing, in the UK with the building regulations increasingly addressing sustainability – will every new house eventually be an eco house?