How a Woman is recycling waste water for our needs
March 15th , 2020 | Smita Singhal
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Where the discarded water ends up?
Have you wondered where ever any waste that is thrown out, or that goes into the drain really ends up? Why the water that you are using to wash, clean and cook, smells sometimes, and why the RO filter in your home has to, repeatedly, be cleaned and filters have to change due to choking? Why your kids and maybe even yourselves have bad stomachs and blame it on the food, whereas it could not be the source because you cooked at home?
These are the reasons why I, Smita Singhal, with my chemical engineer father, researched, designed and installed a working model of converting sewage to drinking water in a green way so that all can have safe, chemical-free and clean water for use straight from their taps without thinking twice.
India will need 1.5 trillion litres water by 2030, according to the Central Pollution Control Board.
An estimated 62,000 million litres per day of sewage is generated in urban areas, while the treatment capacity across India is half of that. Currently, 93 percent of untreated sewage finds its way into our water bodies leading to various waterborne diseases, agricultural contamination as well as environmental degradation.
A complete green process of water recovery
We, at ABSOLUTE WATER PVT. LTD. address this major problem by providing 100% organic water recovery system which is simple, cost-effective and totally sustainable which can be operated by unskilled labour.
At the start, our two main challenges for this innovation was to make it into a completely green process and for it to be commercially and physically viable.
Over 1.5 years of research resulted on the fact that the best available resource to tackle this issue is the UNTREATED SEWAGE ITSELF. Sewage or domestic wastewater as we call it, contains 90% water and only 10% Solids. It’s readily available, it’s a 24-hour cycle and unperishable.
The aim is to treat up to potable water quality complying with the WHO-BIS drinking water norms at a very nominal cost in a totally organic way without any chemicals in it, so that we could keep intact the natural minerals as compared to the current usage of RO where the same is stripped off completely.
It is based on a mix of Vermi-cast and Micro-Organisms that naturally degrade all the pollutants in the raw sewage, converting some into nutrients.
The natural filtration system comprising organic and inorganic media such as wood chips, pebbles and sand giving good quality treated water for agriculture in addition to it being an excellent soil conditioner.
This water can be further treated to give us Drinking water.
Advantages of our technology
It offers a number of distinct advantages in comparison to conventional technologies
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We do not use any Chemicals whatsoever, therefore it is justified as Organic.
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No sludge generation, therefore, no sludge handling costs.
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Minimal electricity is required for plant operation, as it needs just need power for feeding and for advance oxidation step.
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100% of the treated water can be re-used safely making it as a high recovery rate for non-potable applications.
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We can claim the highest recovery rate of 85% of drinking water via our specialised membrane treatment
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Minimal operation and maintenance cost, as the entire design is based on gravity.
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No Odour
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No Noise, since there is no aeration equipment required.
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High Return on Investments.
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The reject from the system has been tackled by generating a form of liquid soil conditioners which complies to all the stringent norms of CPCB.
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It has the shortest stabilization time overall the conventional technologies.
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installations range from 1KLD to 50 KLD for modular structures and much larger civil based units starting from 100 KLD to 2.0 MLD.
Everyone has right to safe and clean water
We set up our first Drinking water plant for DJB at Keshopur, New Delhi, on August 2015, our plant was inaugurated via hands of Honourable Delhi Chief Minister, Mr Arvind Kejriwal, who also drank the water. The technology was accepted because of it’s a green process and 100% conversion.
Today we have installed 14 such plants all around the country and growing.
Treated water is being used for Horticulture applications, Construction works toilet Flushing, Floor Washing, River Rejenuvation and drinking water quality is being used for food Manufacturing processes making it into zero liquid discharge plants as well as for bathing and laundry.
This in itself replaces 60% of the freshwater usage thereby resulting in decreased financial costs for the same.
AWPL is currently treating over 3 million litres of sewage 24x7 thereby supplying clean and safe water to over 6 lakhs people.
We at AWPL consider this to be revolutionary as we are able to give the solid right to every citizen their rightful and legal share to safe and clean water.
The author of the story is Smita Singhal, Founder of ‘Absolute Water’ and you can reach out to them for more information.
InwasteR is only a platform to share WaStory and the views and experience are purely of the author.