Gift going to waste

On July 13, we installed a 2500-litre slim-line water tank to collect rainwater.

On July 15, 18 and 19, my rain gauge recorded a three-day reading of 35mm.

This resulted in the new watertank overflowing.

Our house is an ordinary three-bedroom residence.

The catchment for the tank was from approximately half of the roof area.

This means that over this three-day period 5000 litres of water was available for catchment.

With these figures, the 60 other houses in my street shed something like 150,000 litres of water into the drains over this three-day period.

My tank is now connected to two toilets and the washing machine.

This hopefully should only require occasional rain to keep the tank topped up.

Surely there must be a feasible way to harvest this vital God-given gift or are we just going to wring our hands and watch this disgraceful waste go on?

Arthur Cockrane, Umina Beach