WASH

WASH is a ghastly acronym for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene and it goes with World Water Day, which we've just missed: every year on 22nd March since 1993. Whatever obscure organisation or concept you can imagine there is A Day for it and you can get some peculiar juxtapositions when you realise that every day is attached to  clatter of Roman Catholic saints.  22nd March is the feast of St Darerca of Ireland. I'll bet you've never heard of her - even if you did your catechism in Ireland.  She was the sister of St Patrick. But she was also a saint-making incubator giving birth to Saint Mel of Ardagh, Saint Rioc of Inisboffin, Saint Muinis of Forgney, Saint Eiche of Kilglass, Saint Lalloc of Senlis, Saint Sechnall of Dunshaughlin, Saint Nectan of Killunche, Saint Auxilius of Killossey, Saint Diarmaid of Druim-corcortri, Saint Crummin of Lecua, and Saints Miduu, Carantoc, and Maceaith of nowhere in particular.

But back to cool clear water. The Beloved sent me a list of 6 things to do with saving water, I I summarise and extend here:

1. Clean the berluddy plastic out of the sea. [bloboprev on Boyan Slat]. Foul pictures of polluted water in the G uardian India
2. Don't wear cotton clothes because their manufacture consumes a frightening amount of water. The 2,700 lt of water per T-shirt requires some critical evaluation. That's what cotton requires to grow in irrigated land but the water which isn't taken up by the roots is not wasted or irredeemiably contaminated.  Then again, the Aral Sea has become a dustbowl in my life-time at least partly to irrigate cotton in Utterlyunsuitablestan SSR
3. Solar still can freshen up sea-water in desert greenhouses. Pump it in, let it evaporate and allow the fresh water to drip down from the ceiling on the tomatoes: neat, cheap.
4. Use bacteria to clear contaminated water: Biogill for example. Cleaning the crap that people flush down their toilets is one thing. Diesel, solvents, heavy metals another. They suggest using a nano-ceramic membrane to stablise and hold the bacteria but it's the same principle was we used in Diergaard Blijdorp when I worked there in 1979.
5. TaKaTu measures the physical properties of water with subtle sensors that can diagnose minute changes in pressure and turbulence to predict leaks. This week we detected another leak in our beyond-sell-by-date copper water pipes: no subtle sensors here just a drip of dirty water through the kitchen ceiling. We should never have installed copper pipes if we were planning to use our acid groundwater in the house.
6. But the greatest of them all, in terms of number of people who can benefit is to find cheap and cheerful ways to get drinkable water to the 1.8 billion people who are existing on less than $1.25 a day

Music to soothe your now agitated head? Liked that rendition of Cool clear water? What about The water is wide? Or Shenandoah? [lovely pics] Hills of Isle au Haut? [bloboprev] The Leaving of Liverpool with Aran sweaters? The Shoals of Herring? [bloboprev]