Shreya Ramachandran.
Most people don’t realize that water scarcity a major problem around the world, says conservation expertShreya Ramachandran.
“It’s very much a silent crisis,” says Ramachandran, the 19-year-old founder ofThe Grey Water Project. “It’s only going to get worse with climate change.”
Disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires, which tear through communities and leave death and destruction in their wake, leave deep and obvious visual impressions of the impact of climate change. “But with water scarcity, you don’t have that same sense of urgency,” says the Stanford University sophomore, who studies biology and environmental policy.
“It’s really something that’s creeping up on us, and we’re not taking action fast enough,” Ramachandran, who attended this year’sUN Water Conferencelast month while taking her finals remotely, tells PEOPLE.
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Determined to find ways to conserve our precious H20, she started The Grey Water Project in 2016. The nonprofit promotes the safereuse of grey waterand water conservation through outreach, advocacy, policy changes and public education for school-aged children.
Grey water is lightly used, non-potable water from sinks, showers, bathtubs and washing machines that can be reused to flush toilets, water lawns and gardens, and even irrigate crops.
It makes up about 60% of the water used in a typical household, says Ramachandran, who in 2017 received the President’s Environmental Youth Award and became a member of theUnited Nation’s Global Wastewater Initiative.
“Reusing grey water can save up to 11 trillion gallons of water per year in the U.S. alone,” says the young scientist, who received the2019 Children’s Climate Prizegiven to one young environmentalist each year.
Water Scarcity in Her Backyard and a World Away
Ramachandran’s concern about water scarcity began at 11 while visiting rural Tulare County for a middle school archery competition at the height of the 2015 drought in California, where she saw miles of affected farmland. Wells had run dry and residents were trucking in water for drinking and bathing, she recalls.
Shortly after, when she visited her grandmother in India, she saw how drought had wreaked havoc on crops there, too. Even more disturbing was when she turned on a faucet and no water came out — just a cloudy, discolored goo, she recalls of the visit.
Sometimes when water did pour from the faucet or shower, it would suddenly stop, right when she needed it. “I didn’t know much about water scarcity before I started The Grey Water Project,” she says. “This is definitely something that I care about deeply because I’m a Californian, but also because it’s affecting my family and people that I really care about.”
Though the problem is widespread, affecting people around the world, Ramachandran sees a silver lining. “We really do have a lot of the tools that we need to solve this problem,” she says. “We have the tools and technology that will enable us to really make a massive difference. They just need to be deployed effectively at scale.”
Grey Water to the Rescue
When Ramachandran returned home from India, she spent the next year and a half researching ways to conserve one of the most important natural resources on the planet.
At 13, she founded The Grey Water Project to encourage water recycling. “I just really wanted to do something to help,” she says. “And I started in my own house.”
Common water conservation techniques, such as turning off the tap while brushing your teeth and washing only full loads of laundry and dishes, are helpful but she wanted to do more.
“That’s when I learned about grey water, water that can be reused for non-potable uses,” she says. “That is super important because the term non-potable obscures how much water in our homes does not need to be drinkable water.”
For example, during the hot summers in the southwestern U.S., up to 50% of water in a typical home is used for landscaping and lawns, she says, adding, “So we can replace the fresh drinking water we use for irrigation with grey water, and that can lead to really large water savings.”
Low-Tech, High-Payoff Solutions
To help conserve water in her own home, Ramachandran installed a simple, low-cost laundry-to-lawn pumping system. “In California, you don’t need a permit to install a laundry-to-lawn system,” she says. “It’s something that you can DIY for a relatively low cost compared to a lot of other systems.”
Low-tech systems can cost between $150 to $300, she says. “I installed it on my own as a middle schooler,” she adds, noting how easy the systems can be to get up and running at home.
Because recycled water has to be chemical-free to be used on lawns and gardens, Ramachandran switched from detergent to soap nuts, a gentle and natural cleaner that can be bought online, when doing laundry.
Teaching Climate Literacy and Changing Policy
After learning so much about the benefits of grey water, Ramachandran wanted to share her knowledge with the world. She now holds workshops and as developed a freegrey water curriculum for schools.
“It teaches students where their water comes from and where it goes,” she says of the programming she created, which informs kids “about the phenomena of drought, what its impacts are, and how they can be empowered to design and prototype their own water conservation solutions.”
She’s also trying to change policy, locally and nationally. “In a perfect world, I think we would see a lot more municipality-wide water recycling,” says Ramachandran.
As Fremont’s Youth Sustainability Commissioner, she is working to include grey water in the city’s climate action plan and recommending the installation of grey water-ready pipelines in new construction.
Ramachandran also encourages lawmakers to support rebates for grey water systems installed in new construction and existing homes.
Private companies can do a lot to save water, too, both in direct operations and in their supply chains, she says.
Tackling a global problem requires a variety of solutions from individuals, businesses, governments and more. But says Ramachandran, that simply means “everyone can be a water hero.”
source: people.com
