#Connected
The society that we live in is very technology dependent and at times that might feel like a bad thing as people no longer interact face to face and rely to much on their phones. However, there are a lot of positives to being connected and having access to live information from all over the world on any topic that you have interest in or not. There have been some very important campaigns in the last 5 years or so that have done a lot of good for improving awareness and educating people about important causes, as well as gaining the required money to fund important research.
#WastEdOpportunity
Having talked to a few people about the content of my previous blogs I have come to realise that the general awareness and knowledge of the topic of wastewater is lacking even in educated people at a university level. I am unsure if it is due to the fact that we are of similar age and have grown up with the same education from our schooling or in this case lack there of, on the topic of wastewater. There are a lot of programs in schools these days educating children about the importance of being waterwise and recycling rubbish, but not on wastewater or how these all come together.
To simply teach children about the importance of reducing their water usage by limiting shower time and not using sprinkles isn’t good enough, because it doesn’t address the problems down the line. They may like the idea of saving water because we know there is a lack of rain fall and they are doing their part. However, they are unaware that they need to reduce the usage to reduce waste water and not put rubbish in these water ways too.
#ReduceReuse&Recycle
The school system needs to add to their program on how we are using wastewater treatment plants, the issues associated with rubbish getting into the wastewater stream and the uses of reusing recycled water. Starting this knowledge at an early age will help gain awareness and improve practice for the future as the kids grow up. Incorporating this into the program would be easy because just as the recycle triangle applies to most rubbish it also can be applied to water and wastewater. We need to get more campaign going to educate people on how little changes can have a big impact to the systems in place and this can easily start by educating kids in school programs. Improving awareness will potentially also help public perception of wastewater and issues associated with using recycled wastewater, so for example it won’t have to go into replenishing aquifers but be used as drinking water and remove the unnecessary additional step.
#ImportanceofAwareness
By having more people aware and spreading the knowledge of the state of the infrastructure and how doing ecological changes can have such a big difference will help make a difference. The message on social media doesn’t have to be about wastewater treatment plants as this might not have the desired impact. However, getting ideas like green walls and living streams trending would help spark the change for including them in more designs and seeing a positive change in infrastructure as I’m sure most people would love to have more natural features appearing in the built up cities.
#InnovationandtheFuture
There have been trials in smart meters and the use of live data and technology to help people be more aware of their water usage and how they sit in terms of others around them. There was a study done in Kalgoorlie Boulder with the CRCWSC to see how incorporating smart meters can help people become more aware of their water usage and try to educate them about how they can make small changes to reduce their use (Cardell-Oliver, 2013). This can be a really easy way to help people moving forward in the future because they could get live data updates on their phone. Another way to integrate technology into this would be to have a platform where there were water saving tips, DIY projects on how to reuse your grey water as irrigation, updates on your progress and a forum where people can get involved and share their thoughts and ideas. I think that a big reason social media is a great way to spread awareness is because in some instances people feel like they’re in a group and want to get involved even if never having met anyone in real life. So by having ways for people to get connected online more people would be encouraged to get involved and share they’re water saving tips and any ways they have made they’re house more effective at reusing grey water and rainwater.
Also from campaigns like “who gives a crap” it shows that people want to try and be more sustainable or help if its not too much more inconvenient for them, so if we are able to continue putting products out that have a positive impact there will hopefully be a shift in the way people buy. People do care about the state of everything and just need a push by seeing how by making a few changes in their normal behavior they can make a difference and by doing social media campaigns this is a great way to spread this knowledge.
References
CARDELL-OLIVER, R. Discovering water use activities for smart metering. 2013 IEEE Eighth International Conference on Intelligent Sensors, Sensor Networks and Information Processing, 2-5 April 2013 2013. 171-176.
https://loveisarainbow.com/2018/01/social-media-raising-awareness/
https://www.watercorporation.com.au/home/education/waterwise-schools-program
https://www.wwf.org.au/get-involved/change-the-way-you-live/reduce-reuse-recycle#gs.2w6lam
https://www.greenpeace.org.au/blog/beyond-reduce-reuse-recycle/
Adapt 