Pinoy inventor offers to purify wastewater in Davao’s biggest public market

DAVAO CITY, Jan. 9 (PNA) – An inventor has offered to use his developed solution in purifying the wastewater from the city’s biggest Bankerohan public market here.

Virgilio Sanggutan, president of the Davao Inventors Association and the Filipino Inventors Federation Inc., said Virsantech wastewater solution, the product’s trademark, has been proven effective and is the first locally-made wastewater solution in the country.

Sanggutan said the solution can solve the city government’s concerns of curbing water pollution especially in one of the biggest rivers in the city, the Davao River, where all the wastewater from the public market and other residential areas were ended up all the way to the sea.

He said he will propose that a communal wastewater treatment tank be placed in a strategic area in the public market where all wastewater could be treated.

Sanggutan said he could lower the cost of the production if the city government accedes to this proposal.

He said Virsantech only costs P300 a liter compared to imported products from Italy and France that are sold at P1,800 a liter.

The proposal was presented by Sanggutan in a meeting Tuesday with Councilor Peter Laviña, chair of the council’s committee on trade and industry.

The councilor has been supporting local inventors in the city and has been instrumental for the establishment of a satellite office for the Intellectual Property Philippines Office in the region.

Sanggutan, also proprietor and maker of MI Herbal product lines, said the city government of Valenzuela asked him to try the solution in their major river where freshwater mussels are grown, and which have been constantly plagued with red tide, a problem afflicting shells.

He said he will visit the place on January 13 to 15 upon the invitation of Vice Mayor Arnold Vicencio for the testing.

He added wastewater breeds the bacteria e-coli, salmonella, typhoid and cholera which can quickly multiply and cause illness.

Sanggutan said laboratory analysis of water in the surveyed canals in the city showed 1,500,000 e-coli and salmonella combined.

These bacteria surely cause harm to man but mussels can directly absorb it with any effect, a phenomenon called shellfish Paralytic Poisoning or Red Tide.

When an infected shellfish, which is also difficult to ascertain with looking at it, gets cooked and eaten it can kill a person within 24 hours, he said.

With the solution, however, dirty and smelly waters can be eliminated, he added.

Sanggutan said the solution, made out of the fruit enzymes of durian, seaweeds, and others with activated carbon, was initially tested to clear up a charcoal-colored and stinking canal water.

A 3.75 milliliter of the solution was poured onto a 500 milliliter of the canal water and in a matter of 45 minutes, the water was crystal clear minus the pungent odor.

Sanggutan said if placed inside the refrigerator and cooled, it would just taste like any distilled water one can buy in the grocery stores.

The solution will eat the bacteria. It becomes almost zero bacteria and is potable. From 1,500,000 salmonella and e-coli, the laboratory analysis showed 1.8 bacteria left, he said.

Aside from Valenzuela city, Sanggutan said, he is also meeting with some Singaporean investors who are interested in using the product.

He said while the offer is quite attractive, he would want his invention to be used first in the city.