A call to discussion on "Zero Discharge of Treated Water to Water bodies" has been initiated by George Dsouza on the Answer A Question forum on India Water Portal. The discussion attempts to address the several, at times conflicting facets of the concept of zero discharge of treated water. The query is added below to provide a taste of what is in store!
From George Dsouza: This is an attempt to initiate a discussion on the subject of "Zero discharge of treated water to water bodies", I am sure many of us must be facing the same problem with the huge volumes of treated water. State PCB's are getting stringent with each passing day and trying to enforce zero discharge though they are aware of the non practical aspects of it. Water consumption in industries like sugar, breweries, food processing, pharma industries continue to be on the rise with the increasing GMP norms and cleaning procedures. Hence recycling of 150 to 200 KL of treated water each day is practically an impossible task, let's look at some of the options of recycling and its implications. 1) For gardening: A commonly used phrase but you really need to have a "Mysore Vrindavan size garden"to utilize these volumes, some state PCB's do not accept the practice of discharging water to surface. 2) Deep ground discharge of treated water via filter is not acceptable to PCB 3) Using treated water for utilities like chillers, cooling towers, boilers, and vacuum pumps is not feasible considering scaling of the lines and other maintenance issues. 4) For toilets/washrooms: One can use treated water for non-skin contact flushing but not for other purpose 5) For construction site: water to be used for construction site should adhere to certain acceptable values for TDS, TSS, Chlorides and sulphates .National building code recommends potable water for concrete mix, hence treated water is not advisable. 6) People also talk about using RO for treating effluents; besides the cost the you would do with the RO rejects? I have mentioned above options as these are the suggestions we normally get from consultants and sometimes from our own management over a board discussion, but not practical. I am looking at members of this forum who has gone beyond this and successfully implemented partial or 100% recycling OR have a rational solution for this. Hope to have a useful debate on the above. The query is open for discussion and is hosted on AAQ, access here: Discussion: Zero Discharge of Treated Water