Here in the developed world we are crazy enough to use excellent drinking water to flush our toilets! We transport this precious commodity from beautiful lakes in Cumbria or North Wales - and along the way an awful lot is lost to leakage. It's desirable from a sustainability perspective to use as little as possible. This concept doesn't fit that well with conventional health care, where there is great emphasis placed on washing - bodies, clothes, bed linen and floors! So how to maximise cleanliness and infection prevention and control whilst minimising water use?
We will be exploring:
- reusing "grey" water from sinks, baths and wet rooms for flushing purposes.
- harvesting rain water for the gardens
- low water use laundry - I understand that the new oxygenating washing processes remove the need for extensive rinsing
We will also consider how we can minimise run off from the site, by keeping hard paving/asphalted surfaces to a minimum.
We will be inviting United Utilities (our local water purveyor) to become a partner, initially providing technical advice and expertise, but from there who knows?
We made contact with the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth, Wales, several months ago, to see if one of the people studying on one of their courses might be interested in examining different methods for treating laundry. Can't understand why no one has bitten the cherry ...
