Water Wastage

I save water everyday as much as I can. In the public toilets, I had many times closed the dripping taps. Some taps were running as if water was free. I don't understand why some people are so inconsiderate.

I have been using less water at home.

But, I come to think of it, the water wastage, the free flowing water, everywhere....get me wondering. Is it worth my effort to save a little while there you see so many wastages. Water flowing by hours and by days into the drain.

Let me show you some wastages.

Picture below was taken yesterday (4th June 2008) at Mak Mandin, Butterworth. Fuel price was announnced by PM. I was cruising along Jalan Raja Uda and there was a big congestion at a petrol station as everyone is trying to fill up their tanks. I make a diversion and ended up in a small lane. And here I aw a leaking pipe...not 1 but 3 leaks.

Watch the video of the 3 leaking pipes below.

Below: Early yesterday, along the main road at Bagan Jermal, Butterworth there was this huge gust of water from the ground. Nobody living beside this water wastage seemed to take any notice. When I phoned the water authority, it was the first report.

Below: This leakage was found below the Jelutong Expressway Bridge over Sg Pinang, just a stone throw from JKR. Apparently, some people are using the free flowing water for bathing.

Below: Just 5 meters from the manhole above, another leakage from a huge pipe. Water was flowing none stop. I haven't followup on this leakage yet.

Another terrible leakage was at Jalan Thomas, Bukit Dumbar which was below the Bukit Dumbar reservoir - the PBA office. Imagine people working there are not aware of this leakage and it needs someone living in Butterworth to report his water leak. Well, metal thief had stolen the valve.

It hurts when you make an effort to save as much as you can but the little that we saved cannot compare to the enormous wastages as seen above. So, should I continue to save and report water leakage? Or just keep my busy body business and shut up? What's your say?

I had the water utility phone number in my phone book. And I always call this number (04-5096509) to report. I think I have been reporting many cases. I wasted my time, my phone bill and still finding so much water leakage everywhere I went.

Don't tell me not even one worker or staff from the water authority that does not use the same road as I used? Selfish of the employees!

I reported the water wastage not because I wanted to enrich the utility company - but my love for enviroment, the scarcity of water and our future hinged on this beautiful natural resources - waste not a drop, ok!

Capitalism IS Wastage

Don't get me wrong. I am not a socialist or a communist. I love freedom of speech. I love the environment. But our "materialism" and "consumerism" are getting us into deep shit of environmental disasters. Lets ponder over what Ben O'Neill said:

There was a time when the advocates of socialism argued that it would lead man to material abundance, whereas free-market capitalism would lead only to increasing misery and would ultimately collapse under its own internal stresses. You don't hear that too much these days, and for good reason. A century of empirical evidence has shown the contrary — that the free market leads to increasing wealth and material freedom, while socialism leads us only to poverty, state supremacy, and ultimately, mass murder.

These days the attack has shifted. Capitalism does not lead us to poverty; it leads us to too much wealth. This makes us "greedy" and "materialistic." It leads us to excessive "consumerism."

- Ben O'Neill in his article "Does Capitalism Make Us More Materialistic?" Quote and cartoon from http://www.mises.org/story/2697


Excessive consumerism means wastage. Companies need to sell as much as possible. Stakeholders want to profit to the maximum. Citizens want to live with all the material goods.
Every year, you read about extraordinary profits by big corporations. More profits, more projects. More projects, more development. More development, more land needed... and so more trees cut, more pollution, more floodings and eventually disaster after disaster. Corporations rarely think about environment. They think about profit. They want more. They will do whatever necessary even to the extend of destroying nature for an extra dollar.

Do we need Capitalism in this fragile environment?