Water Shortages can be overcome by using Water Storage Tanks

Were you even aware that Africa is experiencing a water crisis at the moment? In an ideal world, there would be Water Storage Tanks in every neighbourhood, collecting rainwater in order to conserve other water sources. Does it not make absolute sense to collect the free falling water from the sky for everyday use?

Where does all our water go?

Did you know that some toilets use up to 11 liters of water with every flush? Instead of using drinking water to flush your toilet, you could use rainwater; same applies to doing your laundry or washing cars. Watering the plants with rainwater is not only natural, but is saves drinking water for other, more important tasks, like brushing your teeth.

Every time you leave the tap running while you are brushing your teeth, you are running valuable drinking water down the drain for no reason. It has been estimated that almost 50% of our drinkable water is wasted due to leaking or broken pipes and taps that constantly drip. Water Storage Tanks could provide you with water when the local supply is cut off due to burst pipes or maintenance.

Commercially, water is essential to some industries; from small car wash companies to harbours that have to rinse the fish and other equipment related to fishing with clean water. Over and above these kinds of water consumption, we have hundreds of farmlands and about 62% of our water supplies go to irrigation.

We use water every day for countless reasons, from cooking to cleaning and everything in between, but we hardly ever stop to think how critical water is to our existence. Many Africans have access to water at home on a day to day basis, but so many more citizens have to walk kilometers to collect water, and then it’s not even drinkable most of the time.

How fresh water shortages affect Africans:

Would you be willing to walk for hours to collect water and carry it back home yourself? That is a daily occurrence for some Africans. In some parts of Africa, the women spend almost six hours daily to fetch water and carry it home on their heads.

This has meant that many young girls have been deprived of the right to go to school due to their duty to fetch water for their families. Mothers have also been deprived of valuable time that they could have used to plant vegetables or do laundry and cleaning, all activities that requires water.

Another frightening fact about the quality of water available to most Africans is the bacteria they are exposed to and diseases they contract through dirty water. The Water for Africa Institute established that diarrhea among Africans is a common occurrence due to Cholera, Typhoid and diseases alike, not to mention other illnesses like Yellow fever, Hepatitis A & E and even Guinea or Hook worms.

Many of the contamination of the already limited water sources in Africa is due to poor education; people do their washing in rivers, pour pollutants into fresh water sources and even wash babies’ cloth nappies who has diarrhea in water sources, which spreads the virus even further. Up to 1.5 million children in Africa die from diarrhea related diseases every year.

Malaria is also a constant threat in most of Africa as mosquitoes breed in any body of stagnant water. Water sources lie in various containers and especially in polluted zones found in third world areas, making it easy for malaria mosquitoes to multiply and this parasitic infectious disease which kills approximately 600 000 people annually, also mainly young children.

According to water.org, more people have cellphones than toilets, over 358 million people in Africa do not have access to safe drinking water and a child dies every minute due to water related diseases.

Why are Water Storage Tanks essential?

If more people in Africa have access to Water Storage Tanks than not, there would be a significantly decreased number of illnesses and deaths related to diseases that originate in water, as well as problems such as water shortages in rural areas and towns alike.

Imagine a world where rain water can sustain crops and animals of farms on an ongoing basis, give local communities water to sustain their commercial and industrial needs and give their municipalities a chance to recycle more water for drinking and cooking.

If residential areas, farmlands and other industries can be more self-sustaining when it comes to their water usages, the municipality can look at making drinking water available in rural areas as there would be a greater supply thereof.

Also, if municipalities can construct multiple Water Storage Tanks in rural areas to help lessen the burden of fetching water, more girls will be able to attend school and mothers can focus their attention on other urgent matters.

Where can you get Water Storage Tanks?

Rainbow Reservoirs Builders and Water Tank constructors can offer you a product range with a very wide variety of different sized tanks to your specifications and even an assortment of colours to choose from. These Water Storage Tanks come complete with a corrugted Zincalume, low-dome profile roof which keeps all impurities and insects out of your water supply.

Gutters all around hour home and even around the tank will feed directly into the tank, building up a good supply of water for various uses. With some parts of Africa receiving almost 3000 milliliters of rain per annum, the amount of rainwater that can be accumulated in Water Storage Tanks is remarkable.

If you would like to calculate how much rainwater you could collect from your roof surface alone, visit Rainbow Reservoir and Water Tanks and enter your details in the Rainwater Harvest Calculator. You could help ease the drought situation in Africa every time it rains.