While recycling is a term generally applied to aluminum cans, glass bottles and newspapers, water can be recycled for health interest in Provinces of the DR Congo.
In OHED operational zones, water recycling means reusing treated waste water for beneficial purposes such as agriculture and landscape irrigation, local industrial processes, toilet flushing, or replenishing a ground water basin.
In the South Kivu Province, there is a particular deficiency of clean and safe water in most households, hospitals, schools, markets, dispensaries, health centers, and other community gathering
locations. And this problem results in increasing diseases and related deaths among the affected local communities.
The utilization of unsafe and unclean water reduces resources and financial savings although waste water treatment in households can be tailored to meet the water quality requirements of a planned reuse among the Congolese communities. In general, water from local tanks, constructed pipes and protected faucets for home utilization requires much assistance from world agencies for its improvement in towns and villages.
In fact, documented cases of human health problems due to using unhealthy water that has not been treated to standards, criteria, and regulations have been several times reported in the households of OHED operational zones.
A survey carried out by OHED members in Igoki and Panzi areas showed that most of inhabitants are using and reusing gray water from residential bathroom sinks, rain drains, bath tub shower drains, dirty rivers and hole washing drains and that gray water is reused onsite, typically for landscape irrigations and tanks. Therefore, the use of non-toxic and personal care products is highly required to protect water collected from local dirty holes and unsafe tanks.
