A company is offering its services to the city in treating and recycling wastewater into a potable water after being scientifically processed using a technology developed in Japan.
The Japanese technology using sake bacteria which was derived from rice hulls is being offered to process toilet waste in households, offices and even the sanitary plant of Baguio City.
During the Executive and Legislative meeting of the city on Monday, 28 October 2019, Engineer Arnel Hibo of the IRMA group of companies introduced Ecology Toilet System (ETS).
The unsolicited proposal was earlier presented to Mayor Benjamin Magalong and was endorsed for presentation to Vice Mayor Faustino Olowan and the members of the Baguio City Council together with the department heads of the city.
Hibo said that in the traditional toilet system, liters of water are used just for a single flush. Once the septic tank is filled, the manual and odorous labour of cleaning by pozonegro comes in. He said this process is expensive too.
Hibo furthered that maintenance of traditional toilet systems requires a lot of water that may contribute to the possibility of water crisis in the future in Baguio.
According to Hibo, the ETS was proven effective in saving water in Japan.
The Ecological Toilet System (ETS) has four more additional stages unlike the traditional water tank and flushing method. Hibo explained that in the ETS, there are tanks for fermentation, processing, filtration and storing of clean water.
He explained that in the fermentation tank, the feces will be trapped there while the water will be extracted. He said that the sake bacteria will be put in the said tank to decompose or dissolve the solids. Then water excrete will go to the processing tank to rid out the remaining solid materials before going to the filtration tank where the water will be further “purified”.
Hibo said that the processed water will be stored in the clean water tank so that it can be used again for flushing, watering the plants or even for washing. He said that if well processed, the water can also be used for cooking or drinking depending on the acceptability of the people.
The engineer said they are willing to make Baguio a pilot area and a pioneer of ETS in the country at no cost to the city when given the chance.
City Administrator Bonifacio dela Peña remarked positively with the proposed technology saying this may help improve the operational capacuty of the 30 year old sewerage treatment plant of the city.
“We can use the technology to double or tripple the capacity of our sewerage treatment plan,” Dela Peña said.
Meanwhile, Vice Mayor Faustino Olowan said the technology will be useful for urban centers like Baguio to save more water. He said the council will discuss the proposal and possibly make a legislative action endorsing the same. ** Jessa Mardy Samidan
