Abstract:
Water is a natural resource significant to human beings, animals and plants. Water and waste disposal
cause devastating environmental problems such as pollution. This occurs either through direct discharge
inform of domestic or industrial waste waters. To resolve this problem or difficulty an “Integrated Water
and Waste Treatment Scheme (IWWTS)” is adapted. This scheme shows how rain water is harvested and
reused several times in domestic applications. It also points out how domestic wastes is optimally treated
and utilized for generating biogas and for horticultural farming (vegetables).The scheme is important
because it can be implemented in many parts and becomes useful where space is a constraint especially in
towns. How IWWTS works: rain water is harvested and used for cooking and bathing purposes, and
Sullage water results thereby is minimally treated for reuse in toilets. The sewage from the toilets and
vegetable wastes from the households are given to biodigester.The slurry from biodegester, is used in a
vegetable farm, and with wastes from the farm being fed back biodigester.The reuse of Sullage water
virtually doubles the availability of water for household purposes. According to Indiresan (1991),the
(IWWTS) scheme has three advantages; firstly, the effluent is virtually non-toxic and hence the
biodegester replaces sewage treatment.Secondly,it cuts down the lead distance for transporting sewage
and domestic wastes.Thirdly,as most of the wastes are re-cycled, the need for landfills for dumping
wastes is appropriately reduced. The scheme is operated in two modes: small individual units for each
household or medium sized digester for cooperative households. The scheme has no technological
problems to be solved, but real problem is with management where innovation is required. This paper
indicates some specific steps that may be taken to overcome the present tendency to increase further size
and congestion of already over-sized and over-congested cities of the world.
