Our Environmental Commission

As we said a few days ago, an Environmental Comission has been created in our school. Here is the first activity we made to change the way we consume water here. We hope to encourage you to do something similar.

This project aims to research: How do we spend water? Because we are worried about the amount of water we consume every month.

The study consisted of dividing us into groups, which visited the bathroom to check certain things.

My group visited three bathrooms, and we looked at:

1.- Closing time of the washbasin taps.

2.-Moisture stains.

3.-If the toilet cisterns had two buttons installed, one to discharge more water and the other less.

1.- Washbasins

We checked that all the sinks had "handle" taps installed. On the one hand, that is good since the closing of the water outlet is very fast. But on the other, we also notice that people always open them completely. Therefore, it would be necessary to assess whether the longer time to close a standard type tap compared to the custom of opening it just enough. We have not verified it yet, because there are not these types of taps in our school.

2.- We discovered damp stains on the ceilings of two of the three sinks. They didn't seem very big to us, but it's worrying. A large amount of wasted water is from leaks or leaks in the pipes. We couldn't tell if those stains were from a broken pipe or a water overflow in the upper bathrooms. Perhaps the maintenance guys could give more information.

3.- All the toilets had the double button installed. We only appreciated in one that the small button was broken, it was missing.

We also asked the people who used those bathrooms, and the vast majority were not aware, neither of opening the taps a little or a lot, nor did they notice the moisture stains and, luckily, it did seem that they knew how to use the two buttons of the toilets.

It is a simple activity that can help a lot. We hope you will find it useful and do not forget to share it with us if you do this activity.

Mónica Angulo, IES Miguel Catalán