Alarming water pollution is toxic to the aquatic ecosystem leading to a sharp decline in species diversity. In urban contexts, the water pollution is mainly caused by sewage generated from households. Diatoms are a unique class of algae with tremendous diversity and are significantly different in cellular and metabolic potential from other algae. Diatoms are responsible for about 20% of the total photosynthetic CO2 fixation. Diatom algae are pioneers in controlling and biomonitoring of organic pollutants, heavy metals, hydrocarbons, PCBs, pesticides, etc in aquatic ecosystems. Diatoms are known to ingest heavy metals too.

So, for cities like Bengaluru, where lakes like Bellandur, Varthur etc are always frothing, diatoms can be a best solution. Not only lakes, even rivers. Vrishabhavathi River which is today known as Kengeri Nallah can come back to life with diatom cultivation. There has been a successful implementation of the Diatom Based Sewage Treatment unit at Brigade Gateway apartments which is carried out by Bengaluru based Nualgi Biotech. Diatoms thrive in sun lit open environments like Nallah, Lakes, Rivers etc, so just dousing them in the water bodies would be sufficient. However, for a closed setup like Sewage Treatment units of apartments, they need to be provided with a synthetic source of light. Rolled LED units can help in this case. Diatom based sewage treatment eliminates the need for pumping additional oxygen through blowers into the sewage, as oxygen is generated using photosynthesis.

Not only apartments, even individual home dwellers can just douse the diatom culture into the sewage line or toilets as a mark of water conservation & social responsibility, so that when the sewage reaches the water body, diatoms act as warriors to eliminate sewage and give a nice food source to the local aquatic life.