According to the UN, several million people still die each year from drinking water. In most cases, this is not only caused by pollution of their local supply by lack of waste water treatment. Connecting sewers to centralised waste water treatment plants, though expensive, makes sense in dense cities. In deprived suburban areas, and in most rural ones, it is unaffordable, hence usually not realised in a vast number of countries.

Scalable, decentralised solutions exist which are almost as efficient as very large plants on key parameters. When properly chosen according to needs, they reduce the full cost of adequate waste water treatment, including investment, by an average of 30%. This means billions of savings at the scale of those expenditures worldwide, and for agencies financing waste water infrastructure, and millions of lives saved.

The key to this progress is, for public decision makers and waste water utilities, to properly integrate those solutions in their plans, and implement. Let’s do it!

International Water Day
By Cyril Roger-Lacan, Tilia’s CEO.