No 124: Waste Water is more exciting that Drinking Water.

Let’s face it, people who work in Drinking Water tend to either be obsessive about leaky pipes, or just like messing with chemicals. Whereas the folk who work in Waste Water have much more fun. They are earthier, and do exciting things with bacteria and blowers. This is not just a personal prejudice (back when I did real work, I too was a wastewater man). I now have irrefutable evidence. Two weeks ago I ran a Scout group looking at Drinking Water. Last night we did Waste Water, and oh what fun we had…

Somewhat dangerously we kicked off with a power point presentation. It included images and facts designed to highlight why good sanitation is so vital. The opening slides refer to the Paris Hygiene Edict of 1539, which I somewhat boldly claim as the first ever public health legislation. This is based on nothing more than the rather ambiguous  fact I have not found any other earlier examples (I also have not really looked). The discussion almost got side-tracked when I asked who had heard of Henry VIII (he was on the English throne in 1539). A slightly painful but very vibrant debate ensued concerning exactly how many wives he had (numbers ranged from 2 – 8). We eventually got back on track and the microscopic image of a Taenia solium got the expected laugh (see the slide, all will be clear), followed by the shock and awe of the subsequent images of sanitation related diseases.

The slides finish with two pictures of sewers. One a brick lined Victorian structure and the other a modern sewer. The trick is to set these up so they look like photos, but they are actually videos. After a few seconds a rather cute rat comes tripping towards you from the other end of the Victorian sewer. A few seconds later a (far scankier) rat also appears in the modern sewer. It always goes down a storm with school kids and last night was no exception.

Having done the slides, the next activity was to make some sewage of our own. No, not like that. We took a big bucket, some water and various food items and had enormous fun talking about all the things that end up in a modern sewer (food, road run-off, industrial effluents, washing powder, etc). This led, somewhat inevitably, to a competition to design and build a filter that could ‘treat’ our freshly made pseudo-sewage. It is astonishing how much fun 20 kids can have with a funnel, a sieve and sand/gravel. Points were scored on throughput and quality.  

Scouts wouldn’t be scouts without a game and I found a perfect water-based one on YouTube (link below). The children had to pass a cup of water down the line, pouring it from one cup to the next but without touching the cup with anything other than their lips. The winning team was the one that had the most water remaining. It had the added benefit of ensuring the scout hall floor got its annual washing.  

Below are links to all the resources I used last night. The response to my last Note was so encouraging (not least because it confirmed that some people do actually read these diatribes) that I am once again sharing the resources for you to use and abuse. Feel free to copy, paste a plagiarise as you see fit.

Finally, following my last Note my former colleague at Thames Water, Karen Simpson (karen.simpson@thameswater.co.uk) contacted me to tell me about the ‘H20 4 Life’ badge that she created for her local Brownie/Guide group. Since its launch in 2014, over 4200 badges have been completed which, using OFWAT approved rules, equates to over 35,000 l/d of water saved (or over 5 Olympic Swimming pools per year). Karen works in the Water Efficiency team at Thames so clearly knows her onions when it comes to water efficiency. If you want to pick her brains directly then I am sure she would love to hear from you.

Have fun…

Modern Sewer Rat video

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0etdw8PpXr_dTNIM0VvQVl0RFU/view?usp=sharing

Victorian Sewer Rat video

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0etdw8PpXr_TmxZWkdUeXVZVDQ/view?usp=sharing

Presentation

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0etdw8PpXr_S2t6azdWTzNlZlk/view?usp=sharing

Scout game – water pass-the-parcel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KAu8c8IbpM

Not 123: Something to try at work next week…

Last night I had the dubious honour of shepherding twenty-five excitable 11 – 14 year olds. I am an Assistant Scout Leader and our topic last night was ‘water’. Due to my background, I led the evening. I am fairly experienced public speaker, but I confess to a real sense of trepidation as I entered the Scout Hut. This was an audience that could go native very, very, quickly. Lively and boisterous, with a proven tendency to boil-over exceptionally swiftly. It is part of the charm/challenge of scouting (….or at least it is if you are the Assistant leader!)

I had planned three activities (see below). I share them here, just in case you find yourselves in similar situation. Feel free to plagiarise and adapt. The first activity involved encouraging the children to appreciate just how little of the earths water is actually readily available for human use. By getting the children to think of themselves as representing all the water on earth we quickly concluded that 24 of them were sea water and just one of them represented all the fresh water sources. I then chose a scout and stood him in the middle of the room and we put PostIts on him to mark the various fresh water sources (ice caps, permafrost, atmosphere, lakes, etc). The conclusion was that essentially it was just his ears that were easily available water (he had large ears).

The second activity was a water-fact quiz where I gave them the answers but they had to select the right answer as I read out each question. This proved to be particularly successful, with the children properly engaging on some of the issues, whilst at the same time apparently having fun. Most importantly however it enabled me to relive my game-show host fantasy. Next time I shall wear a sparkly blazer too.  

For the third activity I laid out 13 different items on a table (piece of toast, apple, chocolate bar, bottle of wine, a T-shirt etc) and they had to rank them in order of embedded water (ie the water used to produce the product). This was less successful. Half the troop failed to understand the task, while most of the rest just wanted to eat the products. Next time I am just using pictures. In two weeks’ we are doing an evening on wastewater, I am already planning my activities.

I have no doubt that the reason for the nights success was down to the sound advice my wife, Stella, gave me before the evening began. She is a teacher and knows her stuff. I now intend to use these same skills and strategies in the work place. For example, if people are talking over me or just not listening will stand silently in the centre of the room with my arm in the air until everyone else does exactly the same (I didn’t need to explain this rule, they all did it by rote. How cool is that?). Also, rather than liberally ripping into someone when they do something annoying I will patiently and enthusiastically praise the (few) things that they got right (Apparently the carrot is stronger than the stick. Who knew).

And finally, recognising that adults also have short attention spans I will pause every meeting after 20 minutes for an active, full-on game that gets the niggles out of the system. ‘WipeOut’ is a particular favourite. Everyone stands in a circle while a person in the middle swings a rope with a ball on the end in a circle at floor level. People jump over the ball until, inevitably, someone gets hit and crashes to the floor. They are out. Everyone laughs. We move on. It is just dangerous enough to be exciting and not quite dangerous enough to cause any real lasting harm.

There was a proposal last night that rather than jumping over the ball at floor height it should be swung at head level and people should duck instead. This is clearly a terrific idea and will be the core of my new venture :‘Office WipeOut’. I wonder if I can register the concept in time for the Christmas market…

Activity 1

Equipment: pens, paper, PostIt notes

Get children to list all the sources of water they can think of. Give a point for each source and 5 points for any source that no other team has thought of. Bring the group together in a circle and share answers.  Split group to represent each of the main water sources. Once you get down to a single child representing all the fresh water use PostIt notes to highlight how much of their body is the different water types. 

Source                    %                             Child equivalent (assuming a group of 24)

Fresh water           2.5%                                       1

                OF WHICH

                Locked in Glaciers               69           legs and torso

                Ground water                       30           arms and head

                Surface water                       1              ears

OF THE SURFACE WATER

                Lakes      21%                       

                Ice/Permafrost     69%       

                Atmosphere/soil/Swamps/Living things          3%

Conclusion: if the whole troop was equivalent to all the water on the planet then the most useful sources of water equate to about a childs earlobes…

Activity 2

Equipment: 80lt bin and a 2 lt bottle (to show volumes), 4 sets of cards with all the numbers on them

Split the group into teams. Give each team the cards with the numbers/ answers.  Read out the questions and get each team to pick the number that they think gives the answer. Provide the answers live so they can recycle the number if it was wrong (ie use it again)

The amount of water on the planet that is accesable for human use (rounded to the nearest percentage)     1%

The number of people who lack access to clean water                1 billion

The number of people who lack access to adequate sanitation 2.5 billion

The percentage of diseases in developing countries that are related to contaminated water             80%

The number of deaths per year due to contaminated water      2.2million

The distance walked on average in developing countries every day just to collect water (mostly by women and children) 6km

The World Health organisations recommended minimum amount of water per head per day 25lt

The average amount of water used in the UK per head per day 168lt

The average amount of water used in the US per head per day 250lt

The target amount of water used for new modern ‘green’ homes 132lt/head/day

The amount of water consumed in Haiti per head per day 2.1Lt

The average amount of household income spent on water in a developing country 25%

The average amount of household income spent on water in a developed country 1%

The % sanitation coverage in developing countries      49%

The % sanitation coverage in developed countries       98%

Amount of all fresh water used by humans that is used for agriculture (especially cotton, rice and sugar)       70%

No of countries expected to be in severe drought stress by 2025                            48

Percentage of world  population expected to be living in severe drought stress by 2025   35%

The value multiplier UNESCO quote as being achieved for every $1 spent on water             12

Activity 3

Equipment: a photo or actual item of each of the products listed below

Explain the concept of embedded water (ie the water used in the production of goods). Give each team the following items, or pictures of these items and ask them to split them into three groups: high water demand (ie >1.5 tonnes of water), medium (100 – 1500lt) and low (<100lt). Tell them there are 3 low, 5 medium and 5 high. Give 2 points for each one that is in the right group. Give them the right answers and then ask them to rank them within each group. Give 5 points if they get the right order, in each category.

Item                                       Lt required           Ranking

Slice of toast                         55                           low

Orange                                   59                           low

Apple                                     90                           low

30g Bag of crisps                  250                         medium

Glass of Milk                          350                         medium

1Lt lemonade                       600                         medium

Bottle of wine                       900                         medium

0.5 kg chicken                      1300                       medium

Margaretta Pizza                  1600                       high       

Hamburger                            3000                       high

100g Chocolate                    2500                       high

T shirt                                     3500                       high

Microchip                              25,000                   high

No 122: Tough Choices

Every day we face choices. Salad or Chinese take-away? X Factor or Bake Off? Blue tie or Red tie? At the time they seem relevant, maybe even important, but they are not and deep down we know it.

Pity then the poor folk in rural Haiti. I was recently viewing the turnover figures for the dlo Haiti water kiosk business (see attached or visit www.dlohaiti.com) and noted that water sales had levelled off in August. This was surprising since they had risen steadily, month on month for the past 6 months. I asked the CEO Jim Chu why. The answer is complicated but, rather terrifyingly, includes the fact that many rural families  have to make a choice every August as to where they spend their limited cash. Water for the family or school fees? Their choice is education or clean water. And this is in a nation where the average clean water consumption per person is only 2.1Lt/day. This miserable choice is disheartening on so many levels.  

Most of us live a life of blissful luxury, through the good fortune of being born in a civilised, safe, developed country we dodge the really tough decisions. But enough of this. It is a sunny Saturday morning and my wardrobe awaits. I have a big decision to make: tight fitting boxers or loose fitting shorts?