Idea 414 of 500. Cluster 21: Energy, water and waste at small scale
Rainwater-harvesting installation for the dry-zone villages and the hotels
The mechanism, from the book
The sun shines on every roof and the island imports its fuel.
Every idea in cluster 21 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Go to a dry-zone village before the rains and ask the families who buy water by the bowser what they spend in a dry month. Measure one roof, work out how much it could catch, and quote a tank and gutters installed at a fixed price. Do the same with the manager of the nearest hotel. The proof is a deposit or a signed quote from either.
- Who pays first
- A hotel manager who pays for water deliveries in the dry season, since a tank that fills itself pays back in bills they already see.
- What leaves today
- Rain that falls free runs to waste while villages and hotels pay for trucked water; a tank turns a recurring bill into an asset that stays put.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. FourteenThe List
Energy: first, stop importing it
More from cluster 21
- 411Rooftop solar leasing for households, paid from the electricity bill
- 412Solar-powered cold rooms for the fishing harbours and the farms
- 413Biogas plants for the dairy and pig farms, with the gas sold locally
- 415Waste-collection and recycling businesses in the tourist towns, paid by the businesses they serve
- 416Composting of hotel and market waste into a branded soil product
- 417Plastic-recycling units making building products from the beach and river waste
Idea 414 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.