It is estimated that nearly 2 Lakh Crore litres of sewage is generated by Apartments in Bengaluru per year. This untreated sewage flows up as rivers today. In fact, all the rivers in Bengaluru have been known to carry only sewage for over a decade now. Rapid Urbanization, Improper planning and no policing by authorities are the main reasons behind this mess.
Water is a finite resource on this planet, no new water is generated, only recycled. We are still drinking the same water that Dinosaurs used to drink 100 million years ago. There is a famous quote, ‘There is no wastewater, rather there is only wasted water’.
Over 90% of apartments do not treat sewage and out of the remaining half do not do it religiously. There are few issues like under capacity, foul smell in the final treated water in most of the commissioned Sewage treatment plants. This is where people like Vikas Brahmavar come in. Vikas is the CEO of Boson White Water. They specialize in sewage treatment and post STP water potability [Health Grade water generation]. Over the past decade, they have done tremendous work in solving this problem across Bengaluru. They have been part of multiple success stories on water reclaiming in Bengaluru city. Here are a few Success Stories Vikas mentions with Pride.
Story 1: Vakil Satellite Township
Vakil Satellite Township is a layout housing 300 units. They had a typical challenge which is very common in Bengaluru. They had about 30000 Liters of treated STP water per day which had a foul smell and was sent to the drain. Besides, all the borewells in the layout [6 in number] had run dry which made them rely on external sources for water. Boson White water implemented a ‘Unique Health Grade Water System’ at this layout and was able to make the earlier unusable treated water into Potable water [HGW (Health Grade Water) as certified by multiple laboratories]. Apart from that, to use excess treated water a small pond was created to make water percolate to the ground thus recharging the dry borewells. About 90 Lakh to 1 Crore litres of freshwater gets saved in this layout per year due to this.
Story 2: Soul Space Mall
This commercial space in the IT hub of Bengaluru was both a bulk sewage generator and bulk freshwater buyer. They generate on average 75 KL of sewage per day and need 50 KL of freshwater to be fed into cooling towers. However, they were using water tankers to send out treated water and buy fresh water on both these tasks. This would pile up as an additional cost on the operational expense. However, the trials made on softening the treated water and cooling tower failed. As this required huge amounts of chemicals and as well the water generated was not health grade.
Vikas was able to provide them with a custom-built solution to convert the STP treated water to health grade water that is now used for cooling towers. This solved the logistics problem. Apart from that, there is a cost-saving of 65% on the cooling tower chemicals, 75% freshwater demand has reduced and life of cooling towers at this premise has increased. They are able to consistently save about 30K litres of freshwater per day.
Story 3: RMZ Ecoworld
Who has not heard this name in Bengaluru? One of the largest IT parks in the Silicon Valley of India. This as well had the same problems as Soul Space Mall. In fact, all the IT parks in Bengaluru [Even across India] have this problem. They send the sewage or sewage treated water outside the campus and buy the freshwater from outside.
Boson white water was able to provide the HGW solution reclaimed from sewage water to be used for cooling towers. On average, 3.6 Cr lts of water is saved annually on this project. The success of this project has made RMZ work on similar lines for other projects in Bengaluru.
Story 4: Cofresco / Vishuddh Recycle
The company is into collecting the waste plastic from Bangalore using the Waste collection agencies and washing the plastics and converting the plastics to plastic Shampoo containers and the same to be exported to Europe and it is a completely Export oriented unit.
Problems faced:
‐ The facility will have 160 KL of excess Wastewater after washing plastics pouches collected.
‐ To meet norms to reuse the Washed water
‐ Need a continuous availability of scale-free water for 160 KL every day.
Solution:
‐ Converting the Washed water of 160 Kl to reusable Health Grade water and reusing it for processing applications.
‐ An elaborate Effluent treatment plant was designed and Planned for Zero Liquid discharge.
‐ Huge savings in Cost compared to procuring the water via Tanker.
Result: 160 KL of freshwater saved per day.
Story 5: Brigade Orion Mall
Orion mall is one of the largest and renowned malls in Bangalore. The STP treated water available was about 400 KL of water/ day, however, 200 KL was used for Gardening and general purpose. The remaining 200 KL of water was to be sent to the drain without any use.
Problem:
‐ To be environmentally responsible to save 200 KL of STP treated water every day.
‐ Failed attempt to operate a softener to treat STP treated water.
‐ Heavy cost of procuring Fresh Water for Cooling towers
‐ Ongoing issue with maintenance of the cooling tower.
Solution:
‐ Setup of Health Grade Water system to produce 150 KL of STP treated water to Potable water for Cooling tower Application.
Result: 5.4 Crore litres of fresh water is saved per year. This reduced the operational expense of the mall significantly. Also, the Brigade group is now doing phased implementation of this solution over its other projects in Bengaluru.
Water warriors/ Green Entrepreneurs like Vikas are striving hard in making the existing structures in Bengaluru a little more sustainable, one building at a time. The day is not far when we all will start using health grade water for drinking purposes [As Singapore calls it NEO-WATER]. We salute the work done by Vikas and his team, hope this brings in more water warriors on board to solve the Water Woes of Namma Bengaluru.