Owing to its enormous construction and maintenance costs, the management of wastewater in many urban centres of developing countries via a centralised wastewater management approach is very difficult. Often, untreated wastewater is directly discharged into adjacent natural water courses, causing a grave threat to both public health and the aquatic environment. A decentralised wastewater management approach is a prospective solution to overcome this adverse situation because of its low cost, simple operation and revenue return.

Orient Paper Mills, Amlai is an old integrated pulp and paper mill. There is a continuous effort to reduce water consumption per ton of paper produced. The plant is a pioneer in effectively using the treated effluent for its own plantation through HRTS and do not discharge any coloured effluent in the river.

Total water and environment management in a paper mill is the need of the hour to ensure that the dual needs of lower water consumption as well as eliminating waste discharge are met. This is made possible by having an holistic approach to the problem rather than looking at end of pipe solutions like recycling the total waste water produced etc.

Black liquor management for small and medium mills based on agri-residues is still a problem, though several technologies are developed. One of the non conventional technologies being practiced by many of the mills is Modified Copeland Process.

Bangalore city with an extent of 800 sq. km, located at more than 920 m amsl, forming part of the catchments of
Arkavati river to the west and Ponnaiyar river (South Pinakini) to the east. Bangalore city forming a part of the semi-arid tract is in the agro-climatic environs of Eastern Dry Zone of Karnataka. The area is drained by first to fourth-order streams, among which the first and second-order streams predominate.