Decentralized waste water system; solutions for low-income houses(The Indonasian experience)

Abstract

ABSTRACT Wastes are the effluents of human activity and use. The management of wastes is a problem. Increasing cost of raw materials, energy, transportation and land will make it much more feasible in the future to reduce the amount of generated wastes. The under-pinning principle of the Integrated Waste Management concept (IWIVO is the three R's of Reduce, Re-use and Recycle. Wastes are of 2 broad categories; solid and liquid. Liquid wastes are either liquid in form or require water for their disposal. Health and safety standards governing the release of wastewater. stipulate that before wastewater is released into the environment it has to attain some purification standards. This is usually achieved through the use of central sewage treatment plans which have been found to be both in-adequate and expensive. The DEWATS, introduced in Indonesia is a system of decentralized wastewater treatment that is simple and in¬expensive. The system utilizes a combined 4 treatment systems namely:- Primary treatment and sedimentation. Secondary anaerobic treatment in fixed-bed reactors or baffled upstream reactors, tertiary aerobic/anaerobic treatment in subsurface flow filters tertiary aerobic/anaerobic treatment in ponds. Adaptations of this system in Africa will reduce to a large extent, its wastewater management