The royal treatment - Septech unveils new system

The systems are said to be ideal for palaces in remote locations in the Middle East.
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A sudden spike in the amount of people using a sewage filtration system can present challenges to most products. A conventional system which is designed for everyday traffic will struggle to operate when the usage becomes significantly higher.

These sudden increases can result in untreated effluent being discharged from the plant. In the underground trickling bio-filter system, the activated sludge is recycled within its process, keeping the system in a ready state for optimal processing during both peaks and troughs in usage.

“This house has no flow, if it was any other system it would fail. Even if there is zero flow, this will always work. Nearly every ruler in the Western regions and Abu Dhabi have these installed in their palaces. Studies have been done on these and what they have realised is they have minimum fuss, you don’t need any specialised engineering people and we can train people to use it, if they don’t want our people to do it,” explains Heffernan.

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Heffernan also believes there is little to be gained from hooking up a building as remote as the Al Khawaneej Palace up to a central treatment plant.

“It costs so much less for this than it does to put in a network. There is no point in pumping all the water to a central treatment plant just to redistribute it back to the gardens and common areas. So in any area where it is not next to a main network, you would be mad not to put in a small decentralised system.

And we have clients in the UAE who have put them in for 48 villas and things like that and they just gravity feed to it. So you get rid of the mechanical functions and eliminate the wear and tear issues,” he affirms.

The final product which is obtained from the system is ideal for watering and irrigation purposes. The process of the system includes post-treatment chlorination for the safe storage and re-use of the clear effluent in greening projects.

“In the UAE, the water standards are probably one of the more stringent in the world, which a lot of people don’t seem to realise. In Europe its 20:30 BOD in suspended solids, here it’s below 10:10. For irrigating purposes, which this is for, this is more than sufficient, it’s actually too much,” opines Heffernan.

The system seems to have few flaws, and in a building such as a remotely located palace, it is a perfect match. Although it is not suitable for all uses, and Septech doesn’t claim it is, it seems this plant is an extremely well suited horse, for what must be a highly profitable course.

“Why would anyone look at using a more expensive solution if you had the available area? There is no pre-treatment, we need the sewage in there and we are recycling it back through the system.

“Having no noise, below ground, you have no issues and we are seeing a growing trend, every developer wants to put this in, concludes Heffernan.

The UTB system: advantages

• Consumes less power
• Can be run off solar power
• No above site works required
• Can cope with changes in population
• Recycles activated sludge within its own process
• Final product ideal for irrigation and watering process