COIMBATORE: Amidst the water crisis that has gripped the city, a gated community is reaping the benefits of recycling waste water.
According to Local Planning Authority norms, residential apartments and gated communities that are constructed beyond 2000 square metres should treat their sewage properly before discharging it outside.
Taking this a step further, members of Mount Rain Drop Apartments, a gated community situated in Nehru Nagar West near Kalapatti have been treating waste water discharged from 120 residential flats since 2018 by setting up multiple sewage treatment plants on the premises. The recycled water is used for gardening and flushing in every household. What’s more. they plan to sell surplus water for industrial use.
The residents spent Rs 12 lakh on installing the treatment plant in first phase. The second phase of the plant is sponsored by a water purification firm through which they plan to sell water to industries.
“As many as 120 families live in five blocks in our residential complex and we had a regular Sewage Treatment Plant (STP) before 2018 when we were handling around 65,000 litres of input. After 2018, the input sewage rose to 80,000 litres collected every day from the toilets, kitchens and bathrooms from the 120 flats in five blocks. Even after treating the wastewater, we had a problem in discharging the water. It was then we decided to make the water much better by multiple purification processes and putting it to personal use,” said K Radhakrishnan, president of the residents welfare association.
“The treated water is taken to overhead tank and supplied to each house. Around 20,000 litres of water is used for flushing and gardening and the remaining 40 thousand litres is used as groundwater,” S Shanmugasundaram, a member of the association.