Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 14
By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:
A senior Iranian energy official has urged for employing methods of wastewater treatment in the country.
Iran's Deputy Minister of Energy Sattar Mahmoudi has said that only 1.5 billion cubic meters of wastewater is treated in the country while 27.5 billion cubic meters of wastewater is released without any treatment, Mehr news agency reported Dec. 14.
Saying that seven percent of wastewater in Iran is originated from domestic activities, he added that the country produces 29 billion cubic meters of wastewater annually, while only 1.5 billion cubic meters of that is spent on wastewater treatment plants.
He called for increasing the amount of treated wastewater in the country and said the figure should reach five billion cubic meters by March 2016.
He said that industrial wastewater which is obtained from wastewater treatment plants can be used in industrial sectors and in urban green spaces.
He further called for replacing freshwater with wastewater in industrial sectors and said this will decrease the level of water consumption in the country.
More than two billion cubic meters of freshwater is used in industrial sectors in the country, he added.
Iran is situated in an arid area and faces severe shortage of water after years of scanty precipitation and unbridled consumption of ground and underground waters.
The agricultural and industrial sectors together are responsible for 94 percent of the water consumed in Iran.