Progress and concerns in wastewater management

After water is used for laundry, bathing, dishwashing, using the toilet, and many more, it becomes wastewater. In order for this wastewater to be discharged back to the environment and be reused, it must be treated first. This means that wastewater should undergo a process wherein the water passes through several stages including��filtering out of contaminants and cleansing before being sent back to the environment.

Wastewater treatment or management is a vital means of conserving the world’s most important natural resource. With water pollution becoming more challenging to be mitigated, wastewater treatment is essential. In fact, the United Nations stated in 2017 that 80% of the world’s wastewater, and over 95% in some least developed countries, is released to the environment without treatment.

Concerning wastewater management in the Philippines, much has been started and yet much more needs to be done. Notably, it started in 1995, when the Public Private Partnership center urged the government to transfer the burden of handling water supply and sanitation infrastructure to the private sector. Also, according to Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Systems, Inc., there was less than 8% sewer coverage and minimal septage treatment at those times.

To address these concerns, concession agreements that created Manila Water Company, Inc. (MWCI) and Maynilad Water Services, Inc. (MWSI) were signed for a 25-year period in 1997, and have since been extended for an additional 15 years. The agreements entail ensuring 100% wastewater collection and treatment for Metro Manila.

Furthermore, the treatment of wastewaters is also upheld in the Clean Water Act of 2004. It directs the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to implement a wastewater charge system “in all management areas including the Laguna Lake Region and Regional Industrial Centers through the collection of wastewater charges/fees.” It also enforces a discharge permitting system which requires owners or operators of facilities that discharge regulated effluents to secure a wastewater discharge permit.

“Implementation of the polluter pays approach rather than issuing fines has been a key driver in incentivizing industries and residential compounds to install onsite/decentralised treatment systems,” stated the Wastewater Report 2018 by the OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID), an institution of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

In terms of treatment facilities, OFID’s report noted that “more than 58 decentralized treatment plants were constructed (in addition to the existing centralized plants), seeking low operation costs and the most potential for energy production while ensuring effluent standards were met.”

It also stated that in Metro Manila, “15% of the population is connected to sewer networks and 85% have access to onsite sanitation (septic tanks), of which 44% of the fecal sludge and effluent is safely managed.”

Amid these measures and developments, however, there is still ongoing concern about the lack of wastewater management.

Christian Walder, an urban development specialist (water supply and sanitation) at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), wrote in an article published in ADB’s web site last year that megacities like Metro Manila still do not have adequate sanitation and wastewater treatment regardless of important appearances of progress. “It is estimated that more than 11 million of Metro Manila’s population is using on-site sanitation facilities and that there are more than two million septic tanks installed in the Philippines’ capital region,” he added.

The World Bank, meanwhile, stated that Metro Manila generates about two million cubic meters of wastewater every day. “Without adequate sewerage facilities, only around 17% of this volume gets treated before being discharged into water channels in and around the metropolis, which end up mostly in Manila Bay,” the institution added.

To address such inadequacy, in 2012, the World Bank approved a $275M project that aims to improve wastewater collection and treatment practices in several catchment areas of Metro Manila. Named the Metro Manila Wastewater Management Project (MWMP), the project supports the investments of MWCI and MWSI to improve collection and treatment of wastewater from households and other establishments in the metropolis.

����ý reported last December 2018 that at the end of November last year, the MWMP was 73% complete and it absorbed 65.42% of the loan facility offered by the World Bank.

In addition, Mr. Walder of ADB emphasized that innovative solutions for wastewater treatment cities and communities can leapfrog wastewater management challenges. He cited a treatment plant in Biñan City, Laguna as an example.

“The facility is located in a densely populated area and has applied a nature-based technology — comprised of plants, microorganisms, biofilms, and engineered media — to break down the wastewater in a biological process that requires less energy and produces less sludge compared to a conventional centralized treatment plant,” he explained. — Adrian Paul B. Conoza