Hyderabad park opens India's first water recycling public toilet

The Telangana government and the environmental technology company ReFlow opened a water recycling public toilet at Lumbini Park in Hyderabad.

This facility marks the first public deployment of the ReFlow system, which uses a closed loop model to treat and reuse water on site. The Net-Zero toilet operates without a connection to a sewer or septic tank. It uses solar power and an integrated treatment system to process waste into water that can be used for flushing.

This design aims to reduce the strain on urban water resources by ensuring the unit does not discharge effluent into the environment. The project cost approximately Rs 1 crore and resulted from a collaboration between ReFlow, the Telangana government's T-Works, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Hyderabad will now serve as a manufacturing hub for these units, which the company plans to supply to other Indian states and international markets.

The technology stems from the Gates Foundation's long term effort to create sanitation solutions that turn waste into safe byproducts. While the foundation has supported various projects like Georgia Tech's second generation reinvented toilet, this specific Hyderabad installation serves as a real world application of those research goals.