With shrinking water sources and an expanding population, wastewater management is no longer an option. To ensure that we use every drop of our resources wisely, it is important that we understand and implement wastewater management without any delay. Sewage Treatment Solutions is an important part of this.

Sewage treatment is primarily the process of cleaning wastewater by removing contaminants. Surprisingly, despite its importance, there is little awareness or urgency in dealing with this situation. Despite the lack of freshwater sources that are fit to drink, the government has not taken concrete measures to deal with the situation. Neither is there a mass public awareness and movement to push for solutions.

However, the need to address this problem cannot be overstated. In case there are still doubts, here are just some of the reasons on why we need an urgent system to address our sewage treatment.

Rising demand: Rising population means rising demands on resources. In case of India with its expanding population, this was always a disaster waiting to happen. India accounts for 17.4% of the world population. However, it has just 4% of its freshwater sources. In short, we are dangerously close to overtaxing our resources, if we haven’t already.

With the population expected to grow even further, this demand is not going to slow down in the near future. This means that there is a dire need to use our present resources wisely and that includes cleaning and reusing wastewater wherever we can. The rising demand for water can be met partly with treated wastewater.

Polluting surface water: The problem with the fresh water that we do have is the high pollution level, which in some places is highly toxic. Toxicity studies on many of our rivers, especially in urban areas, shows toxic levels of pollutants. Most of this water is declared unfit for even purposes like bathing, let alone drinking. In addition, polluted surface water has a domino effect. The polluted water from one point goes downstream, carrying contaminants along. This eventually spread its effects to a much larger area. It also slowly trickles into the groundwater, polluting that as well.

Shrinking groundwater: With the imbalance between our water supply and its demand, how do we meet our water requirement? The answer is groundwater. We use groundwater sources to meet this lag. But the rising demand means that even this is falling short. While the annual groundwater recharge is still sufficient in coastal areas, inland groundwater recharge is highly insufficient and is shrinking fast.

Industrial wastewater: While in many countries sewage treatment solutions are largely centered around domestic wastewater, in India this encompasses industrial waste. With the lack of awareness in treating industrial waste at source, we are now faced with dangerously high levels of toxic industrial waste entering our water sources.

Official apathy: Although there has been some government focus in the last few years, the results are still far short of adequate. In fact, we are dangerously understaffed when it comes to sewage treatment plants. According to the figures by Central Pollution Control Board sewage generation by Class I cities and Class II towns together is an estimated 29129 MLD.The installed sewage treatment capacity is only 6190 MLD.

This means that there is an alarming remains a gap of 22939 MLD. In other words, 78.7 % of the sewage goes untreated. Even if the under contraction STPs were to become operational today, the gap will remain at 72.7 %. Keep in mind that many of the operational STPs are not functioning, which means that the gap is actually much higher!

Lack of public awareness: Despite the alarming situation today, there is little or awareness of it in the public domain. While there are many other focused and vocal campaigns, this very basic requirement has been ignored by almost all public sphere commentators. Articles and journals in inside pages of newspapers and publications is too insufficient to raise public urgency.

Conclusion

Rising demands and the deteriorating condition of our water sources means that there is an urgent need to look for sewage treatment solutions. We need to move beyond government apathy and work towards a more public-private partnership.

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