Promoting Eco-Homes

Rise in unplanned urbanization has affected the cultural and environmental look of Kathmandu. The difference between Kathmandu within two decades shows drastic changes, with high population growth, environmental degradation and unemployment.

Today there is no pride in calling ourselves the citizens of Kathmandu, the only Metropolitan City in Nepal. However, there are few hope if the so called educated people take actions against the unmanaged Kathmandu. There are few Eco-Homes which are contributing to clean and green environment. Even Astra Development Network has been designing for the construction of eco-friendly housing community in Bal Kumari for Westar Properties.

This community will have 215 apartments in four towers and will include a decentralized waste water treatment plant, rainwater harvesting, groundwater recharge and solar electrification of its common areas.

Grey water or domestic waste water collected from sinks, showers and laundry will be treated in a constructed wetland - an artificially created habitat for natural filtration of effluents. This treated grey water will then be re-used for the purpose of gardening and toilet flushing.

The Government should enforce law and regulations for waste water treatment. With the customer demand, Government should act on providing incentives to install DEWATS. If we care about sustainability, actions should be taken now. Otherwise, it is going to be too late to even regret.

Decentralized Solid Waste Management

Waste is one of the rising issues in the world which is compulsory to manage, yet difficult. Developed countries talk about high technological solutions such as anaerobic digestion and turning waste into energy. However, they are unimaginably expensive for under-developed and developing countries with sparse budget.

Nepal, in this context, is adopting decentralized waste management system. ENPHO has been supporting, through its various programmes, low cost approaches. Managing biodegradable waste via composting is one of the options experimented at Butwal, Bardaghat and Biratnagar which is operated in low cost and can be managed through locally available materials.

For the compost of best quality, C:N ratio should be managed in the compost. Mostly wooden dust is used as carbon supplement, ash for phosphorus and animal excreta for nitrogen. The success of composting, however, depends on the market availability, business models and strong public-private partnerships.

Community Biogas Plant – A model of Decentralized Solid Waste Management (DESWAM)

Decentralized Solid Waste Management (DESWAM) has been the best low cost option to manage waste in local level in the participation with local stakeholders. Among the various DESWAM options, Gulariya Municipality of Bardiya District has initiated 'Community Biogas Plant'.

The 'Community Biogas Plant' of Purano VDC tole (Ward no. 8, Gulariya Municipality) is constructed under Public Private Partnership (PPP) model, where Gulariya municipality acts as public sector, gas user committee as private sector and ENPHO (SWASHTHA Project) as a facilitator for this project. Biogas Construction and Energy Development Private Limited, a local biogas construction company, provided the technical support during the construction phase. 

The compost biogas plant has been designed to manage waste from one slaughter house and kitchen waste from 20 households (hhs). It has been found that the slaughter house produces nearly 200 kg slurry including dung while the hhs produce nearly 8-10 kg kitchen waste per day. The size of the plan is 15 cubic meter with capacity of more than 200 kg per day.

The plant is operated and maintained by a users’ committee, who regularly feed the waste. The produced biogas is used by five hhs (26 family members) for kitchen use. The slaughter house occasionally uses the produced biogas as fuel. According to the users’ committee, purchasing of LPG gas has drastically reduced after the functioning of biogas plant. It has been found that there is the savings of two cylinders worth NRs. 2,800 per month.

The plant has also reduced haphazard disposal of waste. This PPP approach has convinced Gulariya municipality on replicating this demonstration model at other parts of the municipality, where possible. Moreover, the users’ committee has realized the potential of their cost sharing and the benefit they gained. With regular supervision, operation and maintenance, there is no doubt that this project will sustain and can be projected as the best practice model.

-          Written by Mr. AshKumar Khaitu,  Project Coordinator, ENPHO

-          Edited by Ms. Purnima Shakya, PME Officer, ENPHO

Capacity building on WASH at CHRDU

Environment and Public Health Organization (ENPHO) has been actively involved in promoting sustainable sanitation for over a decade, through research, demonstration, promotion and capacity building programmes such as trainings and orientations. ENPHO, at present, is executing different training activities through different expertise associated with governmental and non-governmental sectors. Recently, some efforts have been initiated for joint collaboration with the government organizations for capacity building programmes. In this context ENPHO and Central Human Resource Development Unit (CHRDU) of Department of Water Supply and Sewerage (DWSS) jointly agreed to organize various capacity building trainings on Nov, 2009.

The trainings and orientations on "Water Supply and Sanitation Programmes" jointly conducted by ENPHO and CHRDU are suitable for engineers and sub-engineers. They aim to  help the trainees on providing new ideas and methods that they may consider in their planning and designing; and to get the ideas on type of gravity fed water supply systems, ground water and other problems such as calcination, iron removal, arsenic etc. encountered during the project implementation. 

Besides, ENPHO has supported the Resource Centre of CHRDU, which regularly organizes various training programmes and public awareness campaigns. Among all the conducted trainings, ENPHO organized two major international trainings at CHRDU. This included "International Engineers Training" on DEWATS organized from 3-8 October, 2010 that capacitated participants from Nepal, Mongolia, Malaysia, Sri-Lanka, Pakistan and Bhutan. Similarly, "Expert Training Course on Sustainable Sanitation and Water Management (SSWM)" organized from 16 to 26 November, 2010 capacitated SSWM professionals.

There persists the challenge of meeting Millennium Development Goal (MDG) and National Goal (NG), which cannot be completed without human resource development. In this perspective, the programmes organized at CHRDU necessarily emphasize developing the training capability of the stakeholders working in this sector. Hence, with the technical assistance and facilitation of ENPHO, CHRDU has organized series of such relevant trainings.

ENPHO and CHRDU believe in further strengthening and capacitating experts, professionals and interested individuals on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in the coming future. It is expected that the mutual collaboration will further result in wide and result oriented integrated WASH trainings.

Article written by:              Mr. Kashikant Thakur, Project Officer, ENPHO

Edited by:                             Ms. Purnima Shakya, PME Officer, ENPHO