The Evil of Industrial Water Pollution

The growing industrial development in the country has come at the cost of serious environmental degradation, industrial water pollution being one of the prime concerns. The problems of rising water pollution and growing severity of water scarcity indeed require immediate attention. It is essential to look at a way that tries to curb these issues simultaneously and hence which will be a win-win solution for the society.
The first concern that strikes one is that, is lack of cost-effective technology the reason for the continuously aggravating problem of water pollution or does it have more to do with the level of awareness amongst the industries?
The answer is not a very straight forward one as the reason for existence of high levels of industrial water pollution can vary from region to region and depends on numerous factors like the nature of the industry, access to water treatment technologies, scale of operation of the industry, price at which the industry is acquiring raw water and a much subdued but essential factor: awareness amongst the industries regarding the negative externality they cause.
I will here, talk about the last mentioned factor first. During the course of a study I had the opportunity to visit the industrial estates of Gujarat and get an understanding of the ground realities there. The rising problem of industrial water pollution and water scarcity in the fast industrializing state of Gujarat is well known to all. While availability of technology, the scale of operation, organizational and infrastructural hurdles are were all keys factors responsible for this twin problem, attitude towards the problem of industrial water pollution is a major problem in Gujarat. Many industrial units do not understand the impact of their actions on the quality of water they are polluting which in turn impacts several other sectors and the lives of people in the neighboring region. They still want to use the obsolete technologies as switching to a new technology might be cumbersome. However, the situation has improved in the last few years and efforts of some of the large scale industrial units to deal with this problem are worth praise, as they have realized their social responsibility. They do not mind shelling out a little extra money from their pockets if that ensures better wastewater treatment and focuses on best practices implementation.
With this background, special mention of the small scale pharmaceutical industrial units in the water abundant state of Uttarakhand is worthwhile. This is a water abundant region and there is no scarcity of water. The source of raw water here for industrial purpose is ground water extraction. Costs incurred in treating ground water before use for industrial purposes is approximately Rs. 40000 per annum. Most of the small scale units were generating close to 25,000 Kl of wastewater annually. These units, although small scale ones are already implementing best practices at their plants and recycling water. They are able to recover approximately 70% of wastewater which is used for in house purposes in the production plant: Kitchen, gardening, washing, cooling, etc. At some plants some proportion is released back into the ground to replenish the level of ground water table.
Particularly mentioning the case of IDPL, Rishikesh. The plant is no more functional, but has one of the most elaborate effluent treatment plants. When, it was operational, it was twice awarded for its efforts to combat the problem of industrial water pollution. The plant used both ground water and surface water as a source of raw water. The treated water was released back into River Ganga. The unit received rebate in payments from the State Jal Board depending upon how much water was released back into the river. The dried solid waste which remained in the sludge beds after treatment was sold as manure, as it was 300 % more productive than urea. This, plant used to treat the industrial waste and domestic sewage of the township together. However, now it only treats the domestic sewage from the township and much of the capacity of the treatment plant lies un-utilized.
Thus, even though there is no scarcity of water in this region currently, still the industrial units are aware enough to realize the importance of water as a valuable natural resource, and have already adopted measures to conserve and re-use it to the best of their abilities.
Hence, it is evident that the level of awareness among the industrial units and their dedication to environment conservation can play a key role in promoting water recycling practices. If the willingness to conserve the environment is there, then even rapidly industrializing states like Gujarat can do so in tandem with the much required environmental conservation.