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Cycling is good for you, helps save water too

Sanjay Athavale, a Pune-based IT engineer recycles wastewater from his bathroom and kitchen, and pedals a cycle to pump it to his garden.

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Sanjay Athavale, a Pune-based IT engineer recycles wastewater from his bathroom and kitchen, and pedals a cycle to pump it to his garden. For this, he uses two contraptions — a filter designed by Shrishti Eco-Research Institute (Seri) and a bicycle-pump designed by Modern Technical Centre.

Athavale who owns a ground floor apartment with a garden in the Kothrud area of Pune said, “My family of four was using 400 litres of water every day in our bathroom and for the washing machine. I realised the need to conserve water and decided to recycle it.”

In this simple wastewater purification system set up at his home, Athavale diverts 250 litres of soap water from his washing machine and 150 litres from his bathroom into a filter tank through a four-inch pipeline and a control valve. The water flows into two concrete pits one after the other.

The first one houses Kardal plants which can subsist on soap water. Then the water passes through the multiple-layered purification system designed by SERI, which has eco-fert material — microbes to purify water and sand, small stones and dried leaves.

The filtered water is stored in another tank, in which there are fish that keep the mosquitoes away. Athavale later uses a bicycle fitted with a 0.75HP motor to pump up the recycled water, which is supplied through a drip irrigation network to 10 garden plots.
A mere 15 minutes of cycling pumps around 300 litres of the recycled water to ten plots in his garden through a simple, drip irrigation system. All this at a cost his a mere Rs17,000.

“It is a win-win situation. I not only conserve water but also end up exercising my body,” he says. Athavale hopes that his example is replicated across other bungalows of Pune. He feels that the many hostels in the city should also invest in this system.”
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