Conservation using Aerators ‘RRR’ steps should be followed by everyone for water conservation. RRR – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Aerators play an important role in achieving the objective of REDUCTION of water usage. The older taps or faucets typically dissipate around 15 liters of water/ minute. Use of aerators in such taps/ faucets can bring down the water dissipation rate to about 3 to 6 liters/ minute.

Aerators are nothing but a very small device that sits in the end of a waterspout in any plumbing fixtures like taps, faucets, shower heads etc. They act as flow regulators and help to maintain uniform pressure. Aerators achieve efficiency in reduction of water consumption by mainly mixing of air in the output water flow, thus the name of Aerators. Based on types of output flow, there can broadly be three kinds of aerators; aerated, laminar and spray. Also, it’s important to have pressure compensating aerators if you are living in high rises. This is predominantly due to varying water pressure across floors.

A typical small family can save about 5000 liters/ month just by fixing a good quality aerator on the plumbing fixtures. Considering apartments, if all the individual dwelling units fix aerators, the savings of fresh water will run into lakhs of liters. Multiple conservation agencies have put aerators as the single largest & most effective contributor for water usage reduction (For eg: US Environmental Protection Agency).

Ranka Colony, a large apartment complex off Bannerghatta road was able to achieve reduction of usage of water per dwelling unit by about 130 liters/ day by using aerators, says Mr Suresh Prakash who was the main source of motivation to residents to go with aerators. He is pursuing the cause for larger Bengaluru water reduction.

Aerators can be retrofitted by anyone without any external help as well. They are available on online marketplaces making it really affordable. So, now it’s time to ‘Aerate & Conserve’.