The Ancient Mariner
Water levels in the dams out west continue to fall, and rain does not come in sufficient quantities to keep us going. Everyone is conscious of water use, although there are those whose consciousness extends only so far as to water their gardens outside of the prescribed hours or to whether they will be able to rinse off the sand when their done surfing. Experts advise permanent restrictions and dispute Utilities Minister Frank Sartor’s contention that desalination is “inevitable.” Business uses 23% of Sydney’s water, and a fair bit of that would be related to the building trades, is my guess, despite the indications of a decline in industrial usage. Wednesday night on The New Inventors, a brick- and paver-cutting tool was exhibited that recycled its own waste water, eventually allowing the slurry to be mixed into the mortar. This is an example of the kind of the “new thinking” we need, but an even better example would be tradesmen taking up such an innovation despite the high initial outlay and long return on investment. Government could help the ROI by increasing the cost of non-household water use. Architects could probably help out, too, by developing designs to incorporate the use of rainwater storage and grey-water recycling, but the Federation style home might suffer. Anyway, as usual with humans and the environment, progress will be slow until the crunch well and truly arrives, and even then I’d expect Sartor’s desalination plants before more green-friendly developments.