RO Reject Water Usage Experiment

Objective of the Experient

One of the most defective systems we are inheriting from RDPL is our water facilities. There
are flaws everywhere. Just to focus on our consumption, we need to pump up a mammoth
volume of 700,000 liters of water everyday. Whereas going by Indian standards of water
consumption in major cities (Ref:
http://indiaenvironmentportal.org.in/files/Water%20consumption%20patterns.pdf​) per capita
consumption can be at a maximum of 150 liters/day. Going by that standard for Rosedale
even at full occupancy (of 614 flat with 3.5 persons on an average) it should not take more
than 320,000 liters. At current occupancy level (420 flats) it should take only 220,000 liters of
water. So you clearly understand what kind of wastage we are doing of the most precious
resource on the earth. Even we act selfish and ignore the global impact for a second, we are
directly paying for this wastage. One of the major components of our common area
electricity consumption comes from these pumps, that are used in WTP, and lifting of water
to overhead tanks of towers. Currently we are using almost 3 times electricity than is really
justified. Think of the impact on our electricity consumption if we could save some of this
wastage.

As I mentioned there are multiple flaws in the system. BOM is committed to build a roadmap
to address these flaws over a period of time. We started with the lowest hanging fruit. That is
usage of RO Reject Water. We understand that TDS level in RO reject water is high and
need to perform a thorough evaluation before we can make use of this reject water. However
the benefit is substantial. Average consumption of RO water per tower is 10,000 liters / day.
To generate this quantity average 40,000 liters are pushed through RO plant inlet. On an
average therefore 30,000 liters are rejected per day per tower. Considering there are seven
RO plants in the complex, total volume of water pumped up for RO is on an average 250,000
liters. Which is ⅓ rd of total domestic water pumped up. Out of this our consumption is only
70,000 liters / day and we reject around 200,000 liters/day. This reject water simply does
down to the rain harvesting tank. So we targeted to stop this wastage and with that objective
designed the experiment.

Details of the Experiment

So we decided to do a controlled experiment, where in one Tower (in this case Tower 3)
using a temporary connection, we are injecting the RO reject water back to domestic
overhead tank of Tower 3. While doing so we are monitoring water quality very closely. We
are checking water hardness and TDS every 4 hours religiously. Below is the result of our
findings so far. We have also scheduled a thorough biological evaluation of water sample
during this experiment, to ensure that there is no abnormal findings there.
Findings of the Experiment (till evening of July 20, 2019)
Result listed below are for samples collected from common bathroom of Tower 3

Date Time Hardness (ppm) TDS (ppm)

17/07/2019 17:00 140 255

21:00 150 280

18/07/2019 06:00 175 275

10:00 200 300

14:00 170 270

18:00 164 252

21:00 180 260

19/07/2019 06:00 200 240

10:00 192 288

14:00 200 312

18:00 175 310

21:00 175 270

20/07/2019 06:00 175 290

10:00 175 300

15:00 175 285

As you can see, so far we are not seeing any of the result going beyond the standard
specified by BIS. The complete BIS report can be accessed ​here​. For the benefit of
everyone I am reproducing part of the report directly here below.

Total Dissolved Solids (TDS)

IS 10500-1991 Desirable : 500 mg/l , Permissible : 2000 mg/l

Risks or effects Hardness, scaly deposits, sediment, cloudy colored water, staining, salty or
bitter taste, corrosion of pipes and fittings

Sources Livestock waste, septic system

Landfills, nature of soil
Hazardous waste landfills
Dissolved minerals, iron and manganese

Treatment Reverse Osmosis, Distillation, deionization by ion exchange

Hardness

IS 10500-1991 Desirable :300 mg/l , Permissible : 600 mg/l

Risks or effects Scale in utensils and hot water system, soap scums

Sources Dissolved calcium and magnesium from soil and aquifer minerals containing
limestone or dolomite

Treatment Water Softener Ion Exchanger , Reverse Osmosis

Conclusion
1) As indicated from the results so far, the water quality is well within the norm.
2) We will continue with the experiment for another week or so and continue to monitor
closely as we are currently doing.
3) We will also do the biological evaluation of the water
4) Will share the results with all residents post the experiment
5) Based on the success / failure of the experiment we would either adopt the change
and implement the system in all towers or discard it