Abstract

The rapid urbanisation demands better infrastructure facilities but the cities are witnessing poor services provided by local authorities. The sewage flowing through drains joins lakes and rivers in untreated condition leading to both surface and groundwater pollution. The municipal sewage treatment plants are not redesigned to receive the heavy load of incoming wastewater and fail to treat the sewage to expected standards for discharge into inland waters. This study investigated the effectiveness for RZTS (Root zone treatment system)developed using certain aquatic and ornamental plants for treatment of kitchen waste water.The results have indicated high efficiency on the usage of aquatic plants. It can be concluded that passing the wastewater through the filter beds of P.australis and T.latifolia from any source of organic origin before discharge helps in clearing the organic wastes and thus the burden of organic pollution on the common municipal wastewater treatment plants and lakes can be avoided.