REED ZONE TREATMENT FOR THE TREATMENT OF GREY WATER OF HOSTEL

BOCK OF MITS GWALIOR

1. Chapter One

1.1. Introduction

1.1.1. Sanitation scenario in india

In developing countries, 70 percent of industrial wastes are dumped untreated into

waters where they pollute the usable water supply. In India, the site of this
research, this figure is estimated to be less than 4% (PAHO, 2001a). As a
result many of the once pristine rivers in Latin America are now heavily polluted
with domestic and industrial waste water situation which can be largely
attributed to the low priority given to wastewater treatment. Projected increases
in fertilizer use for food production and in wastewater effluents over the next three
decades suggest there will be a 10-20 per cent global increase in river nitrogen
flows to coastal ecosystems. The impacts are not only the gross contamination of
water bodies and fresh water resources, but include the potential, and real, health
risks of waterborne disease. The cycle of sewage-transmitted diseases such as
cholera and typhoid fever will not be broken while sewage continues to be
discharged untreated into waterbodies where it may be used downstream for
water supplies and irrigation.

The solution however is complex and difficult. Vision 21 (WSSCC, 2000) has
proposed the daunting, and quite likely impossible, task of “universal coverage
with safe water supply and adequate sanitation for everyone by the year
2025”, while currently struggling to simply keep abreast of population growth.
The Millenium Development Goals (UNDP, 2005) have set targets (Goal 7, Target
10) which hope to provide 350 million more people with safe drinking water and
650 million more people with basic sanitation by 2015. The enormity of the task
ahead can be appreciated simply by considering that in the three regions of
Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean, just under 2 billion people
in rural areas are currently without access to improved sanitation, and just
under 1 billion are without access to improved water supply (for definition of
‘improved’ please refer to Section 2.3). All this, when the world is
simultaneously experiencing significant global water stress with projections of
approximately half of the world’s population expected to be living in water-
stressed regions by 2025 (Johnson et al., 2001).

Affordable and sustainable wastewater treatment may hold the key to

remedying this situation. Optimisation of the use of water will be critical and
wastewater reuse will need to become mainstream.

1.1.2. Conventional wastewater treatment

 The developed-world model of ‘end of pipe’ wastewater treatment (water-
based sanitation using deep sewerage followed by conventional wastewater
treatment) is no longer a viable sanitation solution for developing or developed
countries. While it may have been the panacea to nineteenth and twentieth century
public health in the western world (WaterAid, 2002) it is now being criticised as
having “opened up a pandora’s box” (Esrey, 1998): pollution of waterbodies and
the subsequent spread of waterborne disease; the massive requirement for fresh
water at a time when available fresh water resources are already limited; and that
it is no longer a suitable model for developing countries. Low-cost technologies
are recognized as the only viable alternative (CATHALAC, 2000; OPS/CEPIS,
2002; PAHO, 2001b). The development of low-cost and low-maintenance
wastewater treatment technologies is key to advancing sanitation in India.

1.1.3. Alternative wastewater treatment

The unfolding world water crisis has been described as “probably the most
challengingtask the international community is facing today” (Eid, 2001). Not
only is the rising demand for a finite supply of freshwater being driven by
population growth at the same as it is being threatened by pollution, there are
also significant demands being placed upon it by agriculture and industry
(Anderson, 2001). The latter demands may not be incompatible however because
wastewater reuse for agriculture in particular is integral to the philosophy of
ecological sanitation, or Ecosan. Ecosan offers an alternative to conventional
sanitation by providing a closed loop approach to deal with wastewater which
not only avoids environmental pollution but recovers and recycles nutrients to
help restore soil fertility (Esrey et al., 1998; SEI, 2004).

So if developed countries are struggling with these issues, what of the future for
those developing countries where water-based sanitation also prevails? It is widely
recognised that attempting to maintain the ‘business as usual’ paradigm in the
allocation of water resources will be difficult to achieve and unsustainable
(Matsui et al., 2001). Yet wishful statements like those in Vision 21 such as
“expecting a drastic technological breakthrough to be introduced by the water
utility sector” do little to describe how this may be achieved. Matsui et al. (2001)
attempt to address this issue by prefacing it with the statement that sanitation is
the first step towards successful water management “Developing countries
must solve sanitation problems first, which will require technology that saves
water and incorporates water conservation for both water supply and sanitation.
The solutions can be shared by both developed and developing countries”.

The selection of an appropriate wastewater treatment strategy for any given

situation is complex and requires careful consideration of technical, economic and
cultural criteria amongst others. Other studies conducted in similar climatic and
socio-cultural settings such as those in Sri Lanka by Corea (2001) for example
have considered a range of wastewater treatment technologies for
“appropriateness”, while qualities such as the potential for reuse, nutrient
capture and resource conservation which form the hallmark of Ecosan typically are
not. The default technology where water is used for sanitation in rural areas is the
septic tank system. This may be satisfactory provided the environment’s
natural assimilative capacity is not exceeded. However it often is as a result
of population growth, resulting in significant groundwater contamination (UNEP-
IETC, 2002). One technology that has been described as having enormous potential
for developing countries is the use of constructed wetlands for wastewater
treatment (Denny, 1997; Kivaisi, 2001). These are low-maintenance, low-cost
biological systems which can achieve conventional secondary treatment levels.
While their main drawback is the relatively large area required, this is much
less critical in rural areas. There is substantial experience with constructed
wetlands for wastewater treatment in North America, Europe and Australia, and
yet there has been very little use of these systems in India. There exist two main
types of constructed wetland: subsurface flow (SSF) wetlands or reedbeds; and
free water surface (FWS) wetlands. A further type of wetland utilizing vertical flow
is not considered here. SSF wetlands by their nature are not potential breeding
grounds for mosquitoes unlike FWS constructed wetlands (Kadlec and Knight,
1996). The public health implications in the tropics, where mosquito-borne
diseases such as dengue fever and malaria are prevalent, significantly impact the
suitability of FWS systems for these regions.

The implementation of low-cost, sustainable biological systems for wastewater

treatment, such as constructed wetlands, with the subsequent productive reuse
of the treated wastewater, for example in irrigation, is an example of Ecosan.

Overview of situation in MITS gwalior

Madhav Institute of Technology & Science, Gwalior (formerly Madhav

Engineering College, Gwalior), commonly known as MITS-Gwalior, is a major college
of engineering in Gwalior, India. MITS Gwalior is located on Race Course Road,
Gwalior. The longitudinal campus of 47 acres (190,000 m2) is surrounded by the
other educational institutions such as the LNIPE(Lakshmibai National Institute of
Physical Education) and College of Agriculture, Gwalior.

The inside of the campus resembles a well planned city with gardens, lawns and
wide clean roads. The campus has its own water supply and backup electricity
supply. The overall MITS campus is divided into two main zones:

• Student & Faculty Residential Zone

• Academic Zone that includes department offices, lecture theaters, libraries
and workshops.

The student residential zone is divided into two main sectors—one for men's hostels
and another for women's hos.
There are, in total, 5 hostels (3 for men and 2 for women). All the hostels are named
For Men—Block 1, Block 2, Block 3 and For Women—Block 4 and Block 5. Each
hostel has a capacity of around 112 students though some hostels can house 200
students. However the women's hostels have a much smaller capacity.

At present the sewage produced by the hostel blocks is discharged into the sewage
drains from where it joins the bigger rains. Though a number of septic tanks are
also now being buliding to treat the black water, no arrangement has been made to
treat the greywater produced by these bocks.

Scope and aim of research

Wastewater separation at the source, whereby blackwater goes to a septic

tank and greywater is discharged untreated, is a practice which raises
interesting and less problematic treatment options than conventional mixed
wastewater treatment systems in particular it lends itself to the application of
Ecosan. Ecosan’s philosophy of wastewater reuse and water conservation in hand
with the prevailing cultural practice of greywater separation identified here has led
to the adoption of Ecosan principles in the design of systems described here.