about us projects SANITATION join us! WASH coalition HWTS Network
 
 

 

PCWS is looking for partners in the continuing work for water supply, environmental sanitation and hygiene.  The current areas of work include -

Alternative, low-cost, appropriate water supply and sanitation systems
   
Study on water supply, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) indigenous knowledge
   
Capacity building for WASH
   
Up scaling of biogas and wastewater treatment projects
   
Art exhibit to raise funds for sanitation projects
 
  
 
PCWS encourages people and organizations to attend and sponsor on-site, hands-on trainings in a community, school, farm, or island setting.  Aside from the learning experience, the trainings result to actual water supply and sanitation systems constructed in schools, farms, islands and communities where they are most needed.  The trainees become a participant and a partner in improving the local WASH situation.
 
The trainings we conduct are in the context of advocacy efforts to improve the access to water supply, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) in rural and urban areas of the Philippines.  The trainings are a component of a bigger effort combining policy recommendations, awareness raising, capacity building, hygiene promotion, and strengthening partnerships for WASH.
 
Each training is unique as it is done in response to a specific need of a group, a community or an individual. One could be about the construction of low-cost water supply facilities like rainwater harvesting tanks to ensure that water is available for toilet use and hand washing.  Another could be about the construction, operation and maintenance of a biogas digester septic tank for conserving and recycling wastewater and for the management of solid waste.  Another training could be on low-cost alternative wastewater treatment for communities and households (LOCALWATCH), which include biogas digesters, baffled reactors, anaerobic filter, planted gravel filter and pond.
 

 
SOME COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT PCWS EXPERIENCES:
 

On biogas digesters combined with latrines: In your experience, what is the track record of communities' ability to properly maintain the biogas digesters? Do communities actually use the biogas?

Monitoring activities over two years after construction of over 40 units in 29 Philippine villages reveal that all biogas digesters, except one,  are in operation as septic tanks.  But only about a dozen are being used for cooking. The latter is due to cultural reasons (squeamishness about using biogas from human waste for cooking).  Households having backyard livestock and fitted with biogas septic tanks almost always use it for cooking.  The biogas digesters have proved to be trouble-free, with only two instances of trouble being noted (loosening of the tethering of the tarp gas collector), and both were repaired voluntarily by their users.

Do iron removal filters actually remove Iron?  Do they use galvanized metal (nails) to remove arsenic? Please clarify if it is Iron that is actually being removed from the water in addition to any other toxins.

The iron removal filter removes at least 92% of the iron, and the hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and any suspended matter.  Removal of some of the hardness was also noted.  Maybe even some manganese as well.   The iron removal filter's present design is not specifically configured for arsenic removal, but it can be modified as such, although as per our Department of Health national data, there is only one instance of arsenic detection in the Philippines so far, and it was a fleeting reading.

Do you have a rough estimate of how many total installations (latrines, filters, rainwater tanks) PCWS has installed in the Philippines?

PCWS and the organizations we trained have constructed about 2,000 rainwater harvesting tanks; about 100 bio-sand filters; 80 iron removal filters; and about 80 biogas digester septic tanks.

Could you share some technical materials based from PCWS field experiences?

Ferro cement spring box technical brief

Banga Pinoy construction manual