Paving the way for Nepal’s green school movement is a school that works to educate underprivileged children and orphans in the western region of the country. The new Kopila Valley School Campus, located in Surkhet, educates and provide facilities and opportunities for over 400 kids, and has designed a school that is 100% eco-friendly.
With the motto of “Conserve every drop,” the school collaborated with SmartPaani for developing a sustainable water management solution for the campus.
One of the systems designed was to treat the wastewater at Kopila Valley School. One was for toilet water and the other one was for Grey water. Grey water is wastewater that is discharged from sinks, showers, baths, washing machines or dishwashers. The main purpose of greywater recycling is to substitute valuable treated drinking water in applications which do not require drinking water quality. Greywater from baths, sinks, washing machines has to be collected separately from blackwater, it must be treated for reuse as a non-potable water source. In Kopila Valley Greywater is recycled for flushing the toilets. Following this the toilet water is treated and used for landscaping. Water that is not drinkable doesn’t go to waste, they recycle it and make is usable for many purposes. This way they have plenty of water to rely on.
People are now increasingly drawing underground water, this results to drying up the well and ground subsidence. From now on, our concern should be on water security, just like Kopila Valley is. SmartPaani helped design a tank of 300,000 liters for harvested rainwater storage for portable use for this School. This provides the majority of water requirement for the school when coupled with the recycled water.
Drinking water is of equal importance. In a world where there is a growing reliance on plastic, Kopila Valley chose the opposite. SmartPaani installed two Biosand filters and an Ultrafilter for drinking water. Dirty water is not an obstacle, all the children at this school have access to clean water for them to study with reliable good health.
Do you have a solution to reduce and prevent water shortage?
The simple richness of rainfall availability makes rainwater harvesting such a powerful technology, therefore in 2011 SmartPaani was inspired with desire to provide clean water at such places where there is lack of availability of water resources.
“The systems are working properly and I’m excited that we are being more responsible about our water usage, ” reported Jamie MacDonald, sustainability director of Kopila Valley.
By using less boring well water,more rainwater and recycling water, Kopila Valley is carrying the responsibility and showing the country the right steps for better water management. The school takes pride in mentioning that their wastewater isn’t a waste, but actually a resource to plants to grow greener and flourish.