System- Rainwater Harevesting
Located at Khusibu, Felt and Yarn Pvt. Ltd specializes in handmade felt and recycled yarn products. It provides employment to more than 70 Nepalese women.
All of their products are free from chemical and toxin. But wet felting requires lots of water. Wet felting is a process of combining layers of wool roving or yarns into one piece of fabric, using water. The factory produces felt ball rugs, mattress and felt toys in large quantity. In order to complete the order in time and to ensure the finest quality of product, the factory requires 1500 liters of water daily. Sometimes even twice the average demand depending on the type of product and order size.
“It would require at least 1 liter of water to create 10 of these felted dog bone toys”, says Lolita Sherpa, from felt and yarn pvt.ltd.
There is no KUKL water supply connection in the area. And having found no water in the well, their only option was to buy tanker water. This significantly increased the cost of production. They already had laid the gutters and down pipes to catch and use the rainwater. But did not want to use it without the rainwater filtration system as that would adversely effect the dyeing process as well as quality of the felted fabric.
Considering the most viable alternative Mr. Raj Basnet, CEO of felt and yarn, decided to install SmartPaanis rainwater harvesting system at their factory on 2nd August 2018. With the rainwater harvesting system they can utilize up to 2 lakh liters every year, during the monsoon.
Mr. Basnet remarks “We are saving 25,000 rupees on every lakh liters of water consumed. I am satisfied with the SmartPaani’s system.”
The caretaker of the facility Mr. Ram Tamang shares, even during monsoon they used to call water tankers and let the precious rainwater go to waste earlier. But with the new rainwater harvesting setup, the factory and the staff have realized how useful rainwater can be.
“From being highly dependently on tanker water, twice weekly, to catching and using a clean rainwater through SmartPaani’s system was an immensely satisfying experience”, shares Mr. Basnet.