PESHAWAR, Jul 07 (APP): While realizing the impacts of climate change, alarming population growth and poor agriculture practices on water reservoirs of the country, there is a dire need of promoting the idea of reusing waste water for non-portable purposes through the installation of treatment plants in big cities.
The population bulge and expansion of housing societies will result in the production of billions of tons of waste water in the near future and its high time to promote the concept of treating discarded water to overcome water scarcity by reusing the commodity for irrigation purposes, cleanliness, use of fire brigade, car washing etc.
These views were expressed by environmentalists and experts on water conservation during a field trip of journalists to a waste water treatment plant here Friday.
The trip was organized by the Institute of Urbanization (IoU) for awareness of Eco-Journalists to explore the benefits of reusing of waste water through installation of plant at a posh housing society.
The environmentalists included Dr. Ejaz Ahmad, Senior Fellow IoU, Abdul Rauf G.M Water and Power and Attiq-ur-Rehman, Manager Operations, Water Treatment Plant Bharia Town.
“Pakistan is generating 2301 million cubic meters of wastewater per year and if half of this water is utilized for non-potable purposes through treatment, it will help a lot in overcoming water scarcity by reducing pressure on the extraction of ground water,” they opined.
For becoming the climate resilient country, we must consider waste water as a source of valuable content through which the need of water for non-potable purposes can be met through the installation of treatment plants at cities, industries etc, they suggested.
Almost all the housing societies in the country should install waste water treatment plants for the utilization of used water for irrigation, horticulture and sweeping of roads, observed Abdul Rauf.
The project has proved to be highly sustainable by treating 300,000 gallons of waste water on daily basis which if obtained from ground water through tube wells, would have dropped the water table besides payment of electricity bills in millions of rupees, Rauf apprised the journalists.
There are six shifts of four hours duration and in each one 50,000 gallons of waste water is treated and recycled, converting the murky water into fully transparent.
While recalling the need for the installation of waste water treatment plant, Rauf said five of the tube wells installed in the housing society for the provision of drinking water to residents got dry in few years, forcing the management to find ways for an environment friendly sustainable sources of water collection.
The quality standard of treated water is in full compliance of set National Environmental Quality Standards (NEQs) making it free for aerobic bacteria and turbidity.
However, being a Muslim we cannot recommend utilization of the treated water for drinking, ablution and clothes washing purposes, he added.
“It is high time for promoting this idea of Treating Waste Water (TWW) for which governments and individuals at the community level should play their role for saving water for their own and for upcoming generations,” said Dr. Ejaz of IoU.
Water scarcity has become a very serious threat to Pakistan’s sustainable development and economic growth as the country is ranked 14th among the 17 extremely high baseline water stress countries listed by World Resource Institute (WRI), he added.