Decentralization, New Approach to Wastewater Infrastructure Management

Decentralizing wastewater management is the best solution to address our present challenges – rapid population growth and urbanisation, water resource scarcity, climate change and to use advances in technology and knowledge, and the expansion of the Internet.  

A Lebanese-based tech company Mrüna bagged the Global Infrastructure Hub’s global innovation competition award for its decentralised nature-based wastewater treatment system called BiomWeb.

BiomWeb is a solution to scale-down the massive cost and resources needed to build a centralised sewer network comprising pumping stations, concrete sewer lines, precast utility holes, and an army of engineers and builders to get the job done.

Not to mention the amount of fuel and staff-hours spent in transporting wastewater to treatment facilities and bring back treated water for irrigation purposes.

Countries like Lebanon face untreated wastewater problems due to inadequate wastewater treatment capabilities and informal settlements overwhelming nearby treatment facilities. Sometimes, wastewater is dumped into their rivers and waterways, which pollutes ecosystems and causes health problems.

Worldwide spending of governments and institutions on wastewater infrastructure is massive, but despite this, 90% of wastewater goes untreated. The article says that it’s about time to implement a new way of addressing wastewater problems and water scarcity.

“BiomWeb offers a platform to implement a paradigm shift that addresses the design, construction, and operational requirements needed to implement a decentralized and resilient sanitation infrastructure strategy.

This solution promotes a formidable alliance among nature, IoT, and SMEs’ that will disrupt centralized sanitation utilities in the same way solar and smart-grids have done to energy utilities.”

New challenges like climate change, rapid population growth, and urbanization can strain and stretch our resources require unique solutions.

BioWeb is indeed an innovative approach that mimics how nature works to treat and recycle wastewater for irrigation purposes and alleviate water scarcity.

What makes it unique, aside from its decentralized nature, is that it harnesses the power of technology and the Internet, which modernizes the system and making it easy for owners to monitor and control it even remotely.

And lastly, because it is nature-based, principles of sustainability are applied, which is essential as we adapt to climate change.

Watch the video below to see how BiomWeb works.