20 November, 2008 - With the country’s first eco-friendly sewerage treatment plant commissioned on Monday, 17 November, residents of Trashigang town finally got a solution to an ever-mounting problem.

Dedicated to the coronation and centenary celebrations, the new plant, built with a Nu 9.1 m DANIDA funding, will collect sewage from 58 houses in town.

Officials said the plant was critical in preserving the natural environment. “The plant uses only microbes (bacteria) to treat the sewage and no chemicals are used. It won’t emit any smell,” said the plant’s inventor and managing director of Advanced Environmental Control, Mr Jan Hyttel from Denmark. “Similar plants are used across 25 countries and it won’t have a problem in Bhutan’s climatic conditions.”

Zeko of Sangsel Eco Trade, the distributor of the plant in Bhutan, said that the plant has an optimum capacity of 850 houses and is suitable for remote areas. “It’s portable and uses a small space.” The whole plant is the size of a volleyball court. Trashigang municipal employees were also given a short briefing on how to maintain and operate the plant.

The sewerage treatment plant comes at a time when the town is seeing an increasing number of houses every year.

“We’re grateful to the government and DANIDA for the plant,” said Tenzin Gembo, a town resident. He said, in the past, house owners had to clean their septic tanks, discarding all the waste in the nearby stream.

Most residents in the town share toilets with neighbours because of lack of space for construction. “We have to pay someone to empty the tanks but now, with the plant, all that will be taken care of,” said a civil servant.

For the rest of this month the service will be for free, as the municipal office has not yet fixed the rates. “We’re working out the charges to be levied on service users, most probably we’ll combine it with the water bill,” said Karma Dupchuk, the deputy executive engineer of the municipal authority.

Two similar projects are underway in Tsirang town and the ministers’ enclave in Motithang, Thimphu.