ECONEST commences operations with BIONEST

By Rashika Fazali

At a time when Sri Lanka is finding ways to deal with and manage waste-water, ECONEST introduced a global waste-water purification company BIONEST to Sri Lanka recently.

At the launch held at Kingsbury on 9 April, ECONEST Chairman Rejean Appleby speaking to the Daily FT stated the reasons for bringing the company to Sri Lanka: “There is an economic boom, political stability and the tourism industry is improving.”

He said that in addition to these positive aspects viewed in the country, many tourists love Sri Lanka and believe that the country is on its way to becoming one of the top tourist destinations in the world. He also said: “I see a lot of investment taking place in the country.”

Speaking about BIONEST systems, Appleby stated: “This is an interesting product that can bring competitive advantage.” He also pointed out that in years to come, there will be a global scarcity of fresh water; meaning that the world will have to start addressing this issue today and implement ways to reuse water and avoid contamination.

On this note, SWITCH Asia Senior Environmental Engineer Prof. Niranjanie Ratnayake pointed out the importance of water conservation in Sri Lanka. She stated that Sri Lanka is currently placed 90 out of 141 countries in terms of water availability with 1.62 cubic meters, but at the same time Sri Lanka is also placed in the most severely water-stressed countries at 40 out of 93 countries with 39.5% of the land being taken over by water.

In other words, there will be increased salinity, thus reducing fresh drinking water availability and overall water availability leading to increased scarcity of the valuable natural resource.

In conclusion, she stated that if Sri Lanka is to meet the 1 cubic meter of water per-guest-per-day target, then the country has to take the subject of conserving water very seriously.

Supporting this, Deputy Minister of Investment Promotion Faiszer Musthapha said: “We never thought of water as a scare commodity in Sri Lanka, but with development taking place and the tourism industry reaching one million visitors, there is a need for us to make optimum usage of this commodity. Thereby water recycling is something inevitable.”

With BIONEST systems, this is exactly what ECONEST will hope to address. Their system will convert the waste-water to fresh water which could then be used for irrigation, toilet and urinal flush, commercial laundry, construction work and fire fighting.

The company’s advanced waste-water treatment solutions can be provided to all sectors both commercial and residential. Waste-water treated using the BIONEST system gives no odour and produces an extremely low ecological footprint, which in turn protects the environment and maintains public health. It comes at a low investment, minimal maintenance with low energy consumption and is easy to maintain with sludge removal only required every two to four years. Appleby pointed out that after one-and-a-half days of installation, the water that comes out of the treatment system is of high quality.

In comparison to other water treatment systems, BIONEST processes the waste-water in a methodical way and requires minimal movable parts since they use high quality equipment such as effluent filters, air diffusers, BIONEST media, air pumps and a chlorine tablet box which is optional.

A plus point about the BIONEST system is that it can be used in any kind of tank such as concrete, fibre-glass, glass reinforced plastic (GRP), plastics, etc., and can also be shifted or placed underground, making the overall system a flexible one.  A unique feature of the waste-water treatment system is the use of a zero-chemical process with the use of patented bacterial media for treatment along with a 20-year guarantee.

Over 22,000 systems have been installed around the world in countries such as Canada, USA, the Caribbean, Costa Rica, France, the UAE and Qatar.

Appleby stated that they have further plans to branch out to Asia starting off with the Maldives and then to the South East Asia region.