These schoolchildren have saved 20,000 litres of water

With the city battling with its worst ever water crisis, a bunch of young heroes have emerged to inspire Mumbaikars to save water.

A class of 37 school students from a Marathi-medium school in Deonar have made their school change its water consumption habits. The initiative, by the class V students, has helped the city save close to 20,160 litres of water everyday.

Here’s how the 10-year-old’s have brought about the change. Disturbed by the water loss due to leaky taps in their school, the students with help from their class teacher — Dr Seema Chudekar — undertook a project mapping the water loss and suggested preventive steps.

While the project was undertaken in the last week of December, the students and the teacher recently submitted a report based on the project to the schools administration. “Whenever the subject of using water judiciously was discussed in the class, the students kept pointing towards the water loss from taps in the school and often asked why it was not being curbed. This led to the project,” Chudekar said.

The students divided themselves in small groups and first mapped the number of leaking taps, and then measured the quantity of water loss. “Of the 18 taps on the ground floor of the premises, we found 14 were leaking. While the water loss was in drops at a few taps, from many others there was a constant trickle,” Noorjahan Majid, one of the students, said.

To measure the water loss, the students placed a one-litre bottle below the leaky taps and used a stopwatch to note the time it took to fill the bottle. Narrating the findings, Arjun Saravade, another student, said: “Every four minutes, we found that a litre of water was being wasted. The daily loss from one tap was 360 litres. For the 14 taps, the water wastage added up to 5,040 litres.”

Chudekar, who also helped the students prepare their final project report, said that taps on the remaining three floors of the school building had a similar problem. Hence, the students concluded that daily water loss at the school premises was 20,160 litres. However, as soon as the students presented their report, the school’s principal Shivaji Sanap stepped in to take corrective measures. “We have changed most of the taps. We will be replacing all of them,” Sanap said.

The young water ambassadors were showered with praises even by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Suprabha Marathe, executive engineer, rainwater harvesting and water conservation cell of the BMC said: “Considering that the BMC supplies 90 litre of water per person per day, the savings brought about by the students will prove sufficient to take care of water needs of 224 people.”

The students have also begun advocating the save water mantra at their home. Majid has made her mother get rid off the tendency to throw away water stored from the previous day. “Water is never stale. My teacher taught me that,” Majid said.