'It's like gold falling from sky': using rainwater in Singapore

Retiree saves $40 a month on water bills using rainwater for household chores
Mr Liang collects rainwater and stores it in his collection of 200 plastic bottles
He uses water for chores like watering plants
Natashia Lee, The New Paper 30 May 08

A ROW of 10 empty plastic pails line the doorway of a ground-floor flat at Yishun. Some distance away is a shelf, stacked with 200 plastic bottles.

They belong to Mr Liang Su Yan, 70, a retired bus driver who has been using the buckets to collect rainwater for the past five years.

In a single storm, he can collect up to 10 full buckets.

It is recycling at its best.

Mr Liang uses the rainwater to water his plants, mop his floor, and even do his laundry.

His efforts have come up to substantial savings in water bills. He now pays $30 a month compared to the $70 he paid previously.

Previously, he was living with his two grown-up children, also in Yishun.

Said Mr Liang: 'I had 20 pots of plants when I was at my previous home, and I was using tap water to water the plants.'

It was the presence of several construction projects in his neighbourhood that sparked the idea.

Said Mr Liang, who now lives with his wife in a three-room flat: 'Five years ago, I saw empty plastic bottles being littered by the construction workers working in the area, and I thought, what a waste.'

He started picking up the discarded bottles, and soon, he was collecting up to ten bottles every month.

When he first started, he placed only two to three pails outside his home.

Said Mr Liang: 'Back then, I had only 20 small potted plants and didn't need much water for them.'

He would transfer the rainwater from the buckets to the bottles, and cap them for storage.

If he collected more water than he could store, he added bleach to the leftover water to prevent mosquitos from breeding.

Now, his garden has grown to about the width of a basketball court, and includes papaya trees, cactuses, and pepper plants.

These days, Mr Liang uses 20 bottles of rainwater to water his garden.

He has even gone the extra mile to purify the rainwater.

He bought a water purifier in 2005 after a friend recommended it to him.

Now he uses the clean water to mop the floor at home and do the laundry. The device cost him more than $1,000.

Said Mr Liang: 'If I had continued to use tap water, my water bill would probably be about $20 more than what I'm paying now.'

But his water conservation efforts have raised some eyebrows.

Officers from the Sembawang Town Council spoke to Mr Liang in 2005 as they were concerned that the water posed a dengue risk.

He was warned not to keep the water for more than two nights.

But he assured them that the buckets were always emptied immediately, and any leftover rainwater was sprinkled with granular insecticide and covered.

Mr Liang said he plans to continue his recycling efforts.

'It's like gold falling from the sky. If we don't use it, don't you think it's a terrible waste?'