Civil eng'g students install rainwater harvester at Pulo Elementary School

MANILA, Philippines - A group of civil engineering (CE) students from Malayan Colleges Laguna (MCL) has installed a rainwater harvester at a public elementary school in Cabuyao, Laguna, providing an alternative source of water for the school’s toilet and garden use.

Kristoffer Denis Gonzales, Floyd Erickson Gutierrez and Leonard Malabanan built a modified rainwater harvester, a device that collects and stores rainwater in huge plastic containers, and had it installed for Pulo Elementary School (PES). Instead of going down the drain, the rainwater is now being used to clean the public school’s toilets and water its garden. 

Del Pilar said the students are still looking at enhancing and improving the filtering system of the device. Likewise, MCL is committed to send its CE students to PES to check on the device and assess if it could still be enhanced.

According to team adviser Engr. Hermie del Pilar, the team fitted a wire mesh at the roof of the school building to filter solid particles that cause clogging and unlikely mixing with rain water.

“We are actually looking for ways to serve the community as part of MCL’s vision-mission. Since the principal acknowledged that the school’s water supply may not be that sufficient, he approved of the idea to install a rainwater harvester at PES,” he said.

 “The data collected from the rainwater harvester were also used by the same students for their thesis project, of which I am the adviser. That is why we were able to hit two birds with one stone. We were able to perform a community service and, at the same time, conduct a thesis study regarding rainwater harvesting,” he added.

The rainwater harvester is already being utilized in many countries like India, Singapore and China according to Del Pilar, acknowledging that the use of the rainwater harvester is not that popular in the country but Filipinos should take advantage of it.

He hopes that, through this project, students will practice more water conservation efforts like waste water recycling.