Thai innovation may resolve Phuket’s dirty water woes

PHUKET: Officers at the Phuket Office of Natural Resource and Environment (NRE) are promoting a new mini wastewater treatment machine developed in Thailand as a possible savior for Phuket’s ongoing water-pollution woes.

The machine was developed by Kanok Nakaew, the Research and Development chief at the Energy and Environmental Engineering Center (EEEC) of Kasetsart University in Bangkok.

“This new wastewater-treatment machine is environmentally friendly. It uses a magnetic field to treat water,” Mr Kanok said at a demonstration of the machine’s process at the Phuket NRE office on Monday.

The great advantage of the machine is its small size and its relatively low cost to implement, Mr Kanok said.

“The machine needs about 10 square meters of space, it takes less than an hour to set up, installation and operation costs are low, and it produces clean water and saturated sediments insoluble in water,” he said.

Environmental specialist Nutthakrit Polpetch said the innovative machine could resolve water-pollution problems at many areas across Phuket, and even off-island, such as on the environmentally-challenged Racha Yai Island (story here).

Other areas where the machine may prove invaluable included Bang Yai Canal in Phuket Town (story here) and the canal at Bang Tao Beach (story here), said Mr Nutthakrit.

“This machine is used at many places across Thailand to successfully resolve wastewater problems, so the Phuket Office of Natural Resource and Environment contacted Mr Kanok, who invented the machine, to introduce it, explain how it works and advise where it would best be used for resolving water-pollution issues in Phuket,” Mr Nutthakrit explained.

“Now that they know about this machine, business owners and local administrative organizations can decide whether or not to buy one to resolve any wastewater-treatment problems they may have,” he added.

A standard sized version of the innovative machine can treat up to 100 cubic meters of wastewater a day.

“We can place orders for wastewater treatment machines in different sizes, depending on the need. The standard model costs about 4 million baht, which is much cheaper than other comparable machines already in use, which cost on average about 10 million baht each,” Mr Nuttakrit said.

— Kritsada Mueanhawong