BANGALORE: Crowned the third most populous city in India and the fifth most populous urban agglomeration, the IT city is getting crowded further with each passing day. Supporting a population of millions, who dump litres of sewage water on daily basis, the garden city is going grey and losing her green at a fast pace. Adding to the woes further, experts predict that the growing Bangalore will soon fall in the trap of water scarcity. In the middle of all this mayhem and confusion is an unexpected patch of green, turning the sewage generated by the city into portable water. Located at the ACCEPT society, off Hennur Road, the first of its kind Soil BioTechnology (SBT) plant in the city purifies sewage water using bacteria, earthworms and mineral additives in a garden-like setup. The plant treats waste water and makes it fit for variety of usage by mimicking the nature. Started in the year 2009, the Soil Biotechnology plant is a joint venture of Arghayam (an NGO working in water and sanitation sector) and Vision Earthcare (an NGO striving to provide eco friendly solution for water treatement). “The plant installed at the ACCEPT Society treats 15,000-20,000 liter of sewage per day. Moreover, the cost of SBT system depends on quantity of water treatment per day and the pollution load in the water entering the system. Different users require different levels of treatment depending on their reuse application,” said Malini Sharma, director, Vision Eartcare.The Soil Bio-technology technique is a patented technology of IIT Bombay used for waste water purification. Invented by Prof H S Shankar in his research lab, the technology has US patent and Indian Patents to its credit.“SBT is an oxygenation engine that outperforms conventional technologies like Activated Sludge Process (ASP), Sequential Batch Reactor (SBR), Membrane Bio Reactor (MBR) and Moving Bed Bio-reactor (MBBR). Our technology harnesses a special set of bio-chemical reactions to deliver the oxygenation required for effluent treatment,” said Siddharth Biyani, marketing manager, Vision Earthcare. Experts also feel that being 100 per cent natural in its approach, the technology scores over other conventional technologies that have been used to purify sewage water.“In conventional technologies, energy requirement increases. Moreover, air contains only 20 per cent oxygen, the rest being nitrogen that is passed into water wastefully, further adds to process inefficiency. SBT resolves this problem using a bio-chemical method of oxygenation, which not only uses the atmospheric oxygen, but also uses the nitrogen from the atmosphere to achieve the desired level of purity. In addition to this, conventional technologies generate large amount of sludge for which additional disposal facilities have to be created,” said Siddharth.The water generated after the treatment finds its use in a number of ways. “The water can come handy in industrial use, can be used for washing laundry, flushing toilets, gardening, washing yards or cars,” said Siddharth.
Comments
0 comment