SD350 Member’s Family Makes Water Recycling Simple and Do-able
Last September, SD350 sponsored an Activist Training Workshop. One of the attendees was Juan Ahumada, a graduate student, Teaching Assistant and Undergraduate Adviser in the Communications Department at SDSU. Juan had been looking for an organization where he might direct his energy and skill towards the purpose of combating climate change. In this open letter for our blog, he describes how his family recycles water to their garden, helping to mitigate the 19% of California’s electricity used for pumping water, as well as the energy used in mechanized agriculture and transportation of food to market. The simple methods of water conservation he describes here will become ever more important as we adapt to climate-change-induced drought. The more families that practice home gardening with recycled water, the better our region will be able to deal with the consequences of climate change. The following description of how Juan’s family does this is inspiring — and very do-able. Bonnie
Greetings,
My name is Juan Ahumada, I am a SD350 volunteer and climate activist. I wanted to post a short blog on how my family and I go about recycling our water in order not only to have a beautiful garden, but also to be mindful of the water crisis that has plagued our state.
Having always been a low-income family, we have needed to adjust our life-style in order to save as much money as possible. One of the most important things we do to save money is pick fresh fruits and veggies from our garden. To have this healthy benefit, we use recycled water.
Saving water and having a beautiful garden in the process is very easy to do. All you really need is a bucket, some land, and a little bit of time. My family uses water from baths and showers, hand washing, laundry, and dish washing in order to water virtually all of our plants. This not only saves us hundreds of dollars a year in water costs, but also provides us with fresh fruits and vegetables year round.
Most of our water — with the exception of outflow from the washing machine — is moved by hand via buckets to the garden. We simply lock up the bathtub drain in order to keep the water in the tub, then scoop the water up and put it in a bucket that is always kept next to the bath. Then when we are ready all it takes is a quick trip outside to pour the water into whatever plants need watering on that day. We repeat this same process with all of our sinks. On a daily basis we average approximately three-to-five buckets of water for the garden from this method alone
It didn’t take very long for us to notice that the most wasteful appliance we have in the home is our washing machine. In fact, for every load of laundry the machine will use anywhere from 2-3 buckets of water which we are then expected to just let go to waste. Well, instead we collect that water in a large tub and using either a hose or a water pump we transport the water to several locations within the garden.
By engaging in water recycling my family not only saves hundreds of dollars each year, but we are able to do so while still maintaining a beautiful year-round garden providing us with all sorts of fruits and vegetables.
The water we recycle easily makes up over 60% of the water we need to keep our garden healthy and productive. In return, our garden provides us with many different foods ranging from multiple species of cacti, prickly pears, to apple trees, a pomegranate tree, an avocado tree, cinnamon, and even sugar cane. For my family, saving water and gardening have always been a big part of our lives. We first did it out of necessity, but now we do it because it’s simply the right thing to do for the environment, and our health.
2 Responses
Really cool tips. I never thought about recycling the dishwater and its effects on the insects. Really nifty idea. I love the bit about the washing machine as well. No one realizes how wasteful those things are. Keep up the great posting! Thanks
I was wondering about the effects that the soap would have on your plants, especially the laundry detergents, but I am surprised and glad that they seem to have no ill effect. I grew up in San Diego, like you, and have always been more eco-conscious than most people I meet (especially my roommates, some of which had never recycled anything before living with me). I wish there were a more effective way to recycle the water that I use because I am very aware of the crisis that California is facing right now. I’ve never heard of many people in California drilling wells on their private property, but it is more common in other areas of the country. Maybe the state could research the benefits of houses drawing water right from the ground instead of relying on the reservoirs.