Laguna Water, a subsidiary of Manila Water Company, now uses salt as the main ingredient in the production of environment-friendly and cost-effective solutions for water treatment and disinfection.

In a statement, the company said it was able to eliminate health and environmental risks after creating its own sodium hypochlorite (chlorine) with MIOX Corporation's On-Site Sodium Hypochlorite Generator (OSHG).

The on-site generated chlorine is proven to be an effective disinfectant, which improves bacterial control and thus providing better water quality while reducing capital and operation costs.

This new process also ensures the health and safety of employees as well lessen the company’s carbon footprint.

Laguna Water is a water services provider created through a joint venture between the Provincial Government of Laguna and Manila Water Philippine Ventures (MWPV).

Currently, the company operates in the cities of Binan, Santa Rosa, and Cabuyao and the municipality of Pagsanjan. It also has presence in Alaminos, Calamba, San Pablo, Sta. Cruz, and Victoria.

"OSHG technology requires only electricity, water, and table salt (or brine) to create chlorine. It does not produce any by-products; hence, it is very safe and will not produce any health or environmental concerns," said Laguna Water Technical Operations Head Melissa Alcasid.

Since production of chlorine is now done on-site and only needs salt as raw material, OSHG technology increases the company’s reliability and efficiency in terms of water treatment.

Further, it addresses the risk of the employees’ exposure to chlorine since transportation and storage of large amounts of the substance would no longer be required.

“Before OSHG, commercially available liquid chlorine was used and being dosed to our water sources manually. Our operators need to physically go to the deepwells to adjust and monitor the chlorine that is being injected. Now, with OSHG, dosing and monitoring of chlorine is done automatically at the Laguna Well Field, our Centralized Water Distribution System,” said Alcasid.

Chlorination is a water treatment process, wherein chlorine is injected to water to disinfect and kill germs.

This is an important step taken by water service providers to protect public health by ensuring that the water they provide to their customers are free from any disease-causing organism.

Currently, Laguna Water produces 17,000 liters of chlorine per day using the OSHG.

Laguna Water said it uses state-of-the art technology to produce its own cost-efficient and environment-friendly chlorine for water disinfection to ensure the health and safety of customers.