MATTER OF A DROP!

There are many pearls of wisdom just flowing from the incessant stream of information on the social network. They make you think, twitch, squirm, or laugh in various situations. You read them and most of the times forget them.

Recently, I came across one such interesting post where the unknown author had discussed wastage of potable water, a very important aspect of the urban life and importantly tried to resolve the issue by a very simple action to follow.

In all modern corporate training's, a glass of water has created a special place. Whether the glass is full, half filled or empty is discussed. It also tries to get an insight in the thinking of the people, what they feel about the water in the glass. if you feel it is half filled you are positive, and if you feel it is half empty you are otherwise. Whether it matters or not, is a matter of separate research.

Coming back to the pearl of wisdom:

The story goes like this and I am using first-person narrative as a tribute to the original person telling us the story.

“I was in a posh restaurant in the happening area of Pune city.  The restaurant was busy. We were four friends having a great time. Eating the chef specials of the evening. Everything was near perfect, and after some time we decided to part. The check was settled, tips given, we exited from the restaurant with the next date of meeting decided.

After the usual goodbye I went back to the restaurant. I asked to meet the manager and he came with a concern writ large on his face.

I asked him what they did with the water left in the glasses at the tables. He looked at me nonplussed, but replied that the cleaning staff drained the water in the basin. He had no idea why I was so much interested in a trivia like water left in the glasses, or what was done with it. I did not enlighten him, I left the scene.

I am an operations man with some fascinity for numbers. While driving I started a calculation. We were four and we left four half-filled glasses as waste.  Considering a glass of 200 ml, we wasted about 400 ml of treated, clean potable water. The restaurant had some twenty tables, and the number of customers would be 250 on week days and about 450 on weekends.

So, weekdays wastage would be: 250 x 100x5days = 125 litres

and weekends wastage               :450x100x2 days     = 90 litres

So, per week it would be average                                      = 215 litres

What is so great? 215 litres are nothing, you would certainly say.

Now consider Pune has about 5000 such establishments. We are considering only restaurants, not five stars or bigger establishments. So, we are pouring about 5000x215 =1075000 litres of potable water in the drain per week. Annually, it would be 55900000 litres.

This is in Pune only.

India has about 100 such cities. So, wastage would be 5590000 KL.

Now you would feel the impact. And when you think that we are a potable water starved nation it hits even more hard.

It could have been avoided by just three words. We can tell the waiter to pour ‘half glass, please.’

Man has so many accomplishments but creating water is not one them, so we have to conserve whatever we have. We can do the same by saying just a few words. Easy but very effective. “

The narrative ends. But the story must not end.

 We have to save every drop of water or we would have not a drop left.