Wow! Aqua skimmer to scoop out trash from lakes

Hyderabad: The city lakes have become victims of garbage, water hyacinth and sewage dumping. Very soon they will spot a clean look, as a city-based start-up Eunoia Innovations, plans to deploy its aqua skimmer in a lake, which will help remove floating trash on the surface,

on a pilot-basis in collaboration with the GHMC. The startup plans to deploy the machine at IDL Lake, Kukatpally, and Durgam Cheruvu soon.

Speaking to The Hans India, Alankar Achadian, CEO, said, “ the trial runs will start in the second week of February in both lakes. The floating trash collectors are usually used by the civic body to clear hyacinth and other waste in middle of lakes where the depth is more. Areas near lake shores are left out by the machines as they are shallow, but aqua skimmer efficiently removes hyacinth and other floating waste from corners of lakes too.”

Explaining about the device, he said ‘we have done our proof of concept (POC) one and a half years ago. We have built eight different iterations for further device. At present we are ready with our minimum viable product (MVP). We will deploy it in the two lakes.

The device is used for surface trash cleaning in a lake. It will remove trash along with hyacinth. It is remotely controlled. An operator can run the device from one end for a radius of 3-5 km. Also, there is a camera where he can navigate it and collect trash. The collection capacity is 300 litres. It can take 75 kg of trash without any hassle. The operation time is two-four hours on a single charge. ‘Earlier we had tested our prototype device in the Kapra Lake.

How it is different from other devices?. He said the State government is using two methods---one is manual cleaning and the other huge machines called water rovers. The major problem with the device is the trash is concentrated in one edge of the lake. Due to the size of the machine it can’t reach. The aqua skimmer picks it; it can do 100% cleaning of surface trash. Also, it will measure the water quality data based on a few parameters; the pollution level of water will be given. Once it gets deployed in the lake the process will take two months.

Once trash gets collected, we plan to hand it over to companies. They can segregate the trash into organic and non-organic components, he added.