Add a brick to the cistern

Sir,

Your editorial regarding water cuts is very sensible since it seems unlikely that such a tactic will have the desired effect.  There are probably not many techniques that will work in the time scale Cyprus has to deal with this problem, that is to say, the next few months at the most.

One possible action, which was applied in the UK during the Second World War, is to require every toilet cistern to have a brick placed in it to reduce its volume. This has only a marginal effect on the ability of the cistern to flush the toilet and can be easily removed when and if circumstances permit. On the other hand it has a major impact in reducing water usage as the cumulative effect is large.

Given my own knowledge of Cyprus, as a regular holiday visitor, I doubt if there would be any difficulty in finding enough bricks!

Alan Grant
Blairgowrie, Perthshire
UK

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