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Farmers urged to use recycled water for plants
From Dzifa Azumah, GNA Special Correspondent,
Delft, The Netherlands
Delft (The Netherlands), Oct 9, GNA- Mr Speedy Moodliar, a
Senior Manager of the Ethekwini Water and Sanitation Services,
Durban, South Africa, has urged scientists to teach farmers who
grow crops that are peeled or cooked to use recycled waste water
to irrigate their farms.
This is because gray water increases yield, save farmers from
the use of fertilisers as well as maximises profit," he told the
Ghana News Agency in an interview, at the on-going three-day
Global Citywater Futures Summit in Delft , The Netherlands.
The summit brought together water managers, urban planners,
regulators, NGOs, donor agencies as well as policy makers from
SWITCH cities and towns around the world to discuss and share
ideas and experiences with the global network of scientists and
help their cities chart a new path to a sustainable " water city
of the Future."
SWITCH (Sustainable Water Management Improves Tomorrow's Cities
Health) is the name of an action research programme, implemented
and co-funded by the European Union and a cross-disciplinary
team of 33 partners from 15 countries around the world.
Ghana is part of the partnership.
Mr Moodliar said using gray water is a low cost technology
especially for nations who are working at saving their water
resources, and the source is available all year round.
"Gray water from households is absolutely free," Mr Moodliar
said, adding that, the nutrients in such water are rich,
producing high yields.
"We improve the water quality for both underground and surface
water by using it for agriculture before releasing it into
rivers, streams and the ocean.
Mr Moodliar said the technology has been proven in a number of
countries for a long time and it has been found out to deburden
the sewerage system as well as producing nutrient rich crops.
"The recycle water is not as clean as tap water and still
contains germs, so precaution has to be taken in its usage, and
if the rules are followed seriously, profits would be great,
health risk minimised and environmental impacts reduced
considerably."
He mentioned some of the rules: farmers should not drink the
recycled water; they should not use it to wash their clothes or
their bodies. The farmers should always ensure that they wash
their hands with soap and portable water after working in the
farms or gardens; and before eating and drinking.
"Ensure that there is access to safe drinking water and
sanitation facilities on the farm all the time, while
restricting the use of the recycled waste water by children," he
added.
Mr Moodliar cautioned that waste water should not be poured on
vegetables, but on underground crops as the soil acts as a
filter and reduces contamination.
SWITCH aims to bring about a paradigm shift in urban water
management away from the existing ad hoc solutions to urban
water management and towards a more coherent and integrated
approach. The vision of SWITCH is for sustainable urban water
management in the 'City of the Future'.
To achieve this goal, SWITCH aims to improve the scientific
basis for the development and management of urban water systems,
to ensure that they are robust, flexible and adaptable to a
range of future global change pressures.
GNA
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