Rainwater down the drain instead of flushing toilets
03/03/2007 By Sonia Ramachandran

PETALING JAYA: It’s an irony that has irked water experts for years: millions spent on treating water, only to flush it down the toilet again.

The alternative, at least where water for the toilet and other purposes besides consumption is concerned, would cost just between RM2,500 and RM5,000.

But the key players in the matter — housing developers — are unwilling to cover the cost of installing rainwater harvesting (RWH) equipment in new houses.

Their reluctance has put paid to government efforts to encourage Malaysians to depend less on piped water and more on harvested rainwater.

RWH came into the picture for the first time in 1999 with guidelines drawn up on how the people could go about it.

The guidelines were included in the Storm Water Management System manual in 2000 as a secondary objective besides combating floods.

Housing and Local Government Ministry statistics show a dismal response from housing developers to RWH: None of the 169,960 housing developments approved in 2005 had it.

Federation of Malaysian Consumers Associations (Fomca) environment manager Loga Sunthri Veeraiah said it was useless to ask the public to conserve water when they were not given the tools to do so.

She said RWH was a tool that should be actively introduced in Malaysia.

"The weather patterns here are conducive to RWH. We just had floods. We also have a good monsoon season followed by a dry season. Using RWH, you can collect water when it rains and use it when there is a drought," she said.

She said Malaysians had just not got down to taking the "Guidelines for Installing Rain Water Collection and Utilisation" seriously.

"India and Australia have used it successfully. In Bangalore, it’s even been turned into a by-law," she said.

Loga said a developer’s cost of installing RWH would only be one per cent of the total housing development cost.

"This water is not for consumption. It’s only to be used in toilet flushing and in the garage and garden and for general washing."

Consumers, she said, would not be willing to practise RWH on their own because of the cost factor.

She said housing developers were reluctant to install RWH as it was purely voluntary at the moment.

Loga said the government should promote RWH by explaining the cost benefits to the public.

Fomca, she said, wanted the guidelines incorporated into the Water Services Industry Act 2005 to give it teeth.

Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association of Malaysia (Rehda) president Ng Seing Liong said RWH should not be encouraged as the country had abundant water resources.

"The country has a lot of water. It’s just the management of it that is the problem," he said.

Ng said developers balked at the cost of RWH as the cost of installation would have to be passed on to the consumer.

Meanwhile, Drainage and Irrigation Department director-general Datuk Dr Keizrul Abdullah said the government was actively trying to encourage housing developers to incorporate RWH in projects.

"It can be cheap and if incorporated into the house design, can be aesthetic, too," he said.

Keizrul said that during the 1997 El Nino, one major problem faced was carrying water up to apartments to flush toilets. That’s when the idea to flush toilets using harvested rainfall was mooted.

Keizrul said many individuals had installed the rainfall harvesting system on their own after they went through water rationing during the drought.