Car­ol Quash

The se­vere drought-like weath­er ex­pe­ri­enced in T&T ear­li­er this year, forced the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA) to bare its teeth and is­sue wa­ter re­stric­tions through­out the na­tion–a move that placed many cit­i­zens in un­com­fort­able sit­u­a­tions, and caused many up­stand­ing mem­bers of the pub­lic to turn in­to law-break­er, of some sort.

And while no one wants to re­live the has­sles of wa­ter sched­ul­ing, ex­treme­ly short show­ers, and the myr­i­ad of oth­er in­con­ve­niences that ac­com­pa­nied this year's dry sea­son, the is­sue stood out and prompt­ed land­scape ar­chi­tect, Al­lan Dar­went, to do what some en­vi­ron­men­tal­ists have been sug­gest­ing for years.On Thurs­day, Dar­went and his part­ners will launch their com­pa­ny, Green 3 Sys­tems, which will fo­cus on three ma­jor wa­ter is­sues–rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing, wa­ter re­cy­cling and so­lar/ther­mal wa­ter heat­ing.

"We all have a part to play, and as far as I am con­cerned, es­pe­cial­ly as a prac­tic­ing land­scape ar­chi­tect, con­serv­ing wa­ter and sav­ing en­er­gy is of ut­most im­por­tance to the preser­va­tion of the en­vi­ron­ment."He said the com­pa­ny was the sole dis­trib­u­tors for two Cana­di­an com­pa­nies, BRAC Sys­tems and En­er­works, which sold sys­tems that could be in­stalled for both do­mes­tic and com­mer­cial pur­pos­es.

Re­cy­cling

"We are com­mit­ted to prop­er­ly build­ing as­sis­tance and to re­duc­ing the im­pact of two types of waste­water–grey and black."Grey waste­water, he ex­plained, was wa­ter that did not con­tain or­gan­ic waste, such as wa­ter from show­ers, wash basins and laun­dry.He said black waste­water was de­fined as wa­ter col­lect­ed from flush­ing the toi­let and from the kitchen, adding that the colour de­scrip­tions were not in­dica­tive of the ac­tu­al colour of the wa­ter.

Ac­cord­ing to Dar­went, the sys­tem fa­cil­i­tat­ed the fil­ter­ing and chlo­ri­na­tion of the waste­water, which could then be used for things like flush­ing, ir­ri­gat­ing gar­dens, and wash­ing dri­ve­ways."I want to stress that the re­cy­cled wa­ter is not potable wa­ter and should not be used as such," he warned.He said the on­ly dif­fer­ence be­tween the do­mes­tic and com­mer­cial re­cy­cling process lay in stor­age ca­pac­i­ty.

Rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing

Dar­went said the in­stal­la­tion of the rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing sys­tem was the so­lu­tion to cur­rent wa­ter short­ages. With the as­sis­tance of the tra­di­tion­al use of the wa­ter gut­ter­ing, the sys­tem col­lect­ed, fil­trat­ed and chlo­ri­nat­ed the wa­ter.But, like the re­cy­cled wa­ter, Dar­went said there was yet no clear­ance in this coun­try for the wa­ter to be used as potable wa­ter."We are still in the process of speak­ing with WASA and the Min­istry of Health on the is­sue."

Ther­mal heat­ing

The fact that when com­pared to oth­er coun­tries, elec­tric­i­ty rates in T&T were still very cheap, was a down­fall for the en­vi­ron­ment, Dar­went said."Sav­ing en­er­gy and con­serv­ing wa­ter is the way that the world is go­ing for­ward. Of all the Caribbean is­lands, Trinidad is way be­hind when it comes to these is­sues. Its not a mat­ter of if we can do it. We need to do it," he said.

The so­lar heat­ing sys­tem us­es the sun's en­er­gy to heat wa­ter for potable use, with the in­stal­la­tion of flat pan­els, or so­lar col­lec­tors, on the roof or wall. And ac­cord­ing to Dar­went, the so­lar-heat­ed wa­ter is pro­duced dur­ing sun­ny pe­ri­ods."The sun's en­er­gy ac­tu­al­ly heats the wa­ter," he said, adding that the stor­age tanks were in­su­lat­ed and were de­signed to en­sure that they al­ways had wa­ter.

He said the rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing sys­tem and the so­lar heat­ing sys­tems could be used in­de­pen­dent­ly, or to­geth­er, de­pend­ing on the user's needs.In­stal­la­tion of these sys­tems, Dar­went said, re­sult­ed in sav­ings on both wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty bills, and was si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly an act of kind­ness to the en­vi­ron­ment.