BBRAeNEWS No. 295 - How To Prevent Dirty Water from Polluting our lakes.

Dear Residents,

How to Prevent Dirty Water from polluting our lakes.
-Andrew Sum

As awareness, there are 6 steps which I can think of at the moment. They are as follows which every households can cooperates and learn to do:-

1. Learn about the flow of water in our system. Water from households goes into our sewage systems and away from our community. Water we use outside our house, such as in the garden, goes into storm sewers and straight into our lakes. However, some water from households goes into the outdoor storm sewers because some residents’ contractors had modified the vents and pipes without authority’s approval.

1. Examine your habits. Use of pesticides means that when it rains on the lawn or garden, chemicals are washed into the storm sewers.


2. Pick up your pet’s waste. Just as Dr Ganesh Ramachandren says, action speaks louder than words. This is also a form of water pollution we can prevent.

1. Remember, polluting the land means polluting the water in our lakes. Throwing away a cigarette butt or rubbish on the ground near a grating means it eventually reaches our lakes. Mr & Mrs Teh has been picking rubbish in Botanic Park quietly whenever they go for their morning or evening walks…and they discover many residents eventually started to follow what they are doing …. Yes actions do speak louder than words. Mr Khoo quietly went to his neighbor 3 doors away to clear up the rubbish dragged out by the stray dogs. Yet up till today, the neighbor does not know this. Actions speak louder than words and he did it quietly. One of our BBRA Committee members Mr Choo Keang Wooi also goes around on Saturday and Sunday to pick up rubbishes around the lake, and he does it quietly too, with shorts and China Singlet. In my opinion Dr Ganesh Ramachandran, Mr & Mrs Teh and Mr Choo Keang Wooi are the wonderful ‘angels who goes where others fear to tread’.


2. Watch disposal of household products such as paint and solvents. These chemicals also cause water pollution when you don’t dispose of them properly.

3. Set up a Composer unit. This is a great way to reduce your weekly garbage, dispose of yard clippings and make a wonderful rich organic product for garden soil. Just as Mrs Teh have been encouraging everyone to prepare home-made “garbage enzyme” to replace detergent or any other form of chemicals use at home. According to her, this is a wonderful enzyme for cleaning floor, clothes and dishes. Most important, if everyone practices this it will prevent pollution of waters in our lakes.


Tips & Warnings
The more you know, the more you can do to curb dirty water pollution. Don’t be afraid to stop a neighbor from doing something that causes water pollution.

Please treat this as an environmental awareness on lake pollution and as I have said before, remember this earth was not given to us by our parents or grand parents, but is a loan to us from our children and grand children.

Lets give them a good future life we owe them.