There is a raging debate among naturalists about the desirability of cultivating exotic plant species and there are no easy answers. My own view is that we should try our best to avoid introducing any new species into an existing ecosystem but there is no need to get worked into a froth if a species has naturalised over a substantial period of time. Yes, there are places where exotic species have become very invasive at the cost of the local varieties and there may be a case for culling them – but such a discussion is beyond the scope of this article. Instead, we are going to focus on the use of exotic and native species in the context of what is appropriate landscape architecture in a predominantly hot country like India.

Improving Comfort Levels

Trees are often the first line of defence when it comes to passive cooling of a bungalow or other low-rise structure. They provide shade which prevents the build-up of heat not only on the ground but also on the walls of the building. Shade on the ground means the breeze coming in through your window is cooler and shade on the walls means less heat gets transferred indoors. Aside from shading, trees also cool by transpiration to the extent that they can, if properly located, reduce ambient temperatures by as much as 5° compared to the surroundings.

So what kind of trees should we plant, and where?

While the finer details vary across different parts of the country, broadly it is safe to say that the hottest sides are the South and West so, if you can concentrate on protecting these directions with dense evergreens, you’re good to go. On the East, you might want to have high-branching trees that won’t block your early morning sun and on the North – depending on whether you get direct sunlight penetration or not – you could grow colourful, possibly deciduous trees. You have to be careful during plantation that you leave enough distance between the tree and your foundation because many of the large trees have strong spreading roots.

Trees, even in urban areas (albeit to a lesser extent), are part of an ecosystem and need to treated at as such. If they are native, they will invariably be well integrated into that ecosystem along with the local fauna like the birds and butterflies. An introduced plant is unlikely to be so well assimilated and may therefore not contribute in a positive way. There are plants that have been naturalised over a long period of time but I’m referring to those that have been introduced because they are ornamental or because they grow rapidly. Usually the ornamental ones are fragile and drop their branches on your head at the beginning of the monsoon and the fast-growing varieties with their short life-spans often sap the soil so severely that nothing else grows there for years after they’re gone.

Usage of Water

This is a very important factor to take into consideration especially if you’re thinking of sustainable landscaping. Many ornamental trees and bushes are extremely high-maintenance and don’t even get me started on lawns. They may look very pleasing to the eye but, with few exceptions, they guzzle frightening amounts of water and are often heavily sprayed with chemical pesticides — which naturally leech into the groundwater.

Here, a very important argument for using native species is that they will, by default, survive with the naturally available moisture and precipitation. Of course they may need some amount of watering when they are saplings as also during the hot summer months but, in general, their water requirements are a small when compared to exotic ornamentals.

Apart from saving fresh water there are also some ways of reusing and recycling water so as to reduce our requirement. The technology for this could be hi-tech, like a filtration plant, for example but we will concentrate on basic low-cost solutions here.

Grey Water for Flushing

When we bathe, wash our hands, wash our clothes or get the house swabbed, the discharge that goes into the drain is known as ‘grey’ water (as opposed to ‘black’ water from the toilet). Grey water is sometimes soapy and sometimes contains large amounts of dirt. On occasion, it may have a slight smell but, on the whole, it harbours no harmful pathogens.

This grey water requires only a minimal amount of treatment before it is good enough to use again. You may not want to drink it or even bathe with it but, in fact, you don’t have to come in contact with it at all. You can simply reuse it for flushing.

Apart from reducing your water consumption by almost 50%, if you have a septic tank, re-using grey water has an additional side-benefit that the black water no longer gets diluted by the grey water and, as a result, decomposes more efficiently. Even if you don’t want to build a separate treatment section for grey water, the least you can do is put it into your plants.

Reuse Water for Landscaping

The discharge from your kitchen, bath and washing machine is not harmful to plants so, if you have your own garden, you can always release this water almost directly. In case the food you eat is relatively oily, it might be necessary to install a small grease-trap to take first remove grease from the kitchen waste.

I know someone in the city of Pune who, for years, has released grey water from the kitchen and bathrooms of his bungalow straight into a clump of lush Papaya trees. I asked him pointedly about the chemicals in the soap etc. and he just laughed. He is, by the way, an graduate in agriculture so I guess he knows what he’s laughing about.

The explanation is this: chemicals in detergents and cleaning agents are considered bad because they promote the growth of algae. In fresh water, algae deplete the oxygen which, in turn, kills the fish and other fauna there. But these same chemicals – among them phosphates – also act as growth promoters for trees and are, therefore, excellent for landscaping.

Sewage Treatment

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There are literally thousands of sites on the internet which will show you ways of saving water. Some boast of having the 100 best tips while others give you five; but almost all of them are useless to us here in India. We don’t clean our cars with a hosepipe (we pay a cleaning ‘boy’ who uses a tiny bucket with a mop) and we don’t water our lawns every week – we don’t usually have lawns to water in the first place. So, on this page, let us not go on about obvious things like “don’t keep the tap running when you brush your teeth”. Let us look at systemic solutions instead, this is an architectural website, after all.

Low-flow Taps and Showers

From an average shower head, the flow averages 8 to 10 litres each minute. So for every 10 minutes of showering, you use between 80 and 100 litres of water. With a bucket, on the other hand, you are likely to average around 15 litres. That is a huge difference and for people who dislike using a bucket, a huge weight on their conscience – or so I would like to believe.

Similarly, though on a smaller scale, when we run a tap, we tend to use more than we really need; but fiddling with a mug while you’re rushing to shave in the morning can be difficult. So we have to look for some other solution to this problem.

If you are willing to, you can simply change the shower-heads and taps to ones that allow a lot less water through. They are classified as ‘low-flow’ and are still quite a rarity in India. They have a design that aerates the water so that although it feels like a good flow, a lot less water is actually consumed. At the same time, the apertures through which the water passes are kept tiny so that the water is forced through and hits you with the same force as a full-flow shower or tap.

Low-flow showers use about 3-5 litres/minute so a 10 minute shower now costs you 35 litres instead of, the average 90 – a saving of 55 litres. Low-flow taps (don’t forget the kitchen sink!) save at least 15 litres per person each day.

If you think that is not much, remember that you save over 25,000 litres every year. Per person! For a family of 4, that’s more than one lakh litres! And if you’re willing to go the bucket and mug route for your bath, you – as an individual – will save almost 30,000 litres per annum.

For the record a lot of people absolutely hate low-flow fittings. In fact there are people who complain that even normal showers flow too slowly for their liking and they actually install on-line pumps to increase the water pressure. If you are one of these people, I know you are going to say that just one person makes no difference. Ummm… Twenty Five Thousand Litres is no difference? Really?

Dual Flushes

Another major way to save water is by changing your flushing system. A normal flush uses 10 litres each time – regardless of whether the bowl contains 100ml of urine or the sum and substance of your latest bout of diarrhoea. On an average day, a person goes for a big job a couple of times and urinates about eight times. With a normal flush, that means you send 100 litres down the drain in 24 hours.

Dual flush systems allow you to choose whether you want a full flush (usually ~5 litres) or just half (~2.5 litres).

Eight urinations + two big jobs:
Grand total for the day : (5×2)+(2.5×8) = 30 litres
That is a saving of a whopping 70 litres which totals 25,550 litres each year. Knock off the 550 litres for all those times when your spouse/parent/teenage offspring complains that “it did not flush properly the first time” and round off the figure to 25k. Not bad, what?

It is a common misconception that such flushes don’t do a good job with the big job. What determines whether the stuff goes away quietly is not so much the amount of water as the design of the toilet bowl itself. Attaching a low-flow cistern to a potty that was designed for twice as much water is not necessarily going to give you good results.

Almost all the major sanitary ware companies make dual flush tanks with matching WCs. Also, recent municipal rules, at least in Bombay (Mumbai), insist that only dual-flush cisterns may be used in all new construction. Some manufacturer links are at the bottom of the page.

Stop that Leak!

Little drops of water make the mighty oceans. If you let all your taps leak all day long for the rest of your life, you would still be unable to fill the Pacific. But you could, very well, fill a large lake. A tap that leaks just a single drop every second, wastes almost 12,000 litres each year. That means throwing away approximately half as much water as you could save by changing your flush tank or by installing low-flow taps and showers.

Do you have a dripping tap? Try the American Water Works Association’s drip calculator to see how much you’re really wasting.

Not getting leaky taps fixed is usually nothing more than laziness on our part because we don’t realise the extent of the problem. That excuse no longer washes, so if you are not handy with a wrench, go call that plumber. And place a bucket under the tap while you wait for his highness.

Choose your Appliances Wisely

Washing machines and dishwashers consume water that would otherwise be used to manually clean your clothes and dishes. While the latter are still relatively uncommon in India, the former are found in most urban homes. So what should you look for when you go to buy one? Aesthetics?

A friend recently wanted a new washing machine that consumed the least possible water. We went to a reputable store that has branches all over town. After looking around, it boiled down to two front-loading machines – let us call them ‘E’ (for a famous European brand) and ‘A’ (an equally famous East Asian company). Front-loaders, by the way, are far more water efficient than top-loaders.

Anyway, we naturally asked the salesperson which model used less water. He hesitated just a fraction and then told us that ‘E’ used 90 litres on a full load while ‘A’ used only 60 litres. This I found surprising because I already had an ‘E’ that used only 49 litres and I mentioned this to the salesman. The latter was adamant and it led to a bit of an argument until we asked him to bring us the technical specifications for both models.

It turned out that ‘E’ does use 49 litres on a full load and ‘A’ uses around 55 litres for the same full load. The point I am trying to make here is that salespeople are usually not trained to answer questions like water consumption and most are not trained to say “I don’t know but let me find out” either. So do not believe what you are told – ask for the printed specifications.

So, Will You?

You can see that the overall saving for a normal user can be anything between 25,000 and 50,000 litres each year. Of course, it will cost you a few thousand rupees and, because water is subsidised in India, you may not recover the financial investment for quite a while. But think of the environmental benefits. You must be concerned; you would not be reading this page otherwise. Fifty Thousand Litres. And that’s just from one person. Go ahead. Make the change. You won’t regret it.

Oh, and if you are seriously thinking of water harvesting then this will actually translate into a lot of money because the cost of storage tanks will immediately drop by almost half.

External Links

Cera Sanitaryware, India
Hindustan Sanitaryware, India
Kohler Sanitaryware, India
Water-saving showerheads. US site
Drip Calculator

More

If you are the manufacturer/dealer of any product that you feel is appropriate for this page, please fill this form stating clearly what exactly makes your product green/sustainable.

Please note that Greenwashing will not get you anywhere and inclusion of the product is not guaranteed and is entirely at our discretion.