constructed wetland--My Tanzanian experience

I was in Tanzania for 1 and half yrs from March 2007 --September 2008.I came across some interesting things there and one of them is the constructed wetlands. As a Professor of Community Medicine,  one of my subjects is Environment.The main aspect of this is to prevent environmental pollution and its bad effects on health.Sewage management is one of them and it is the most badly managed subject especially in the developing countries. African countries  are still developing and some of them are under developed. We in India, always grumble about the sewage overflowing on to the roads and we have no qualm in discharging our sewage into rivers and the seas. When I visit the Europian countries what strikes me most is how nicely they maintain their rivers. Once I traveled all the way from Stutgart to Kolhn in Germany along the river Rhine. I was surprised at the way they have preserved the river and I could not help comparing India with them. At one hand we shout at the rooftop saying that each river is equal to a Goddess and worship them but what have we  done to preserve these rivers? Where is Cooum river? Where is Moosi river? Both of them have been turned into stinking cesspools by the corresponding city corporations. And we the citizens don't bother to spare even one second to think about this sad thing.The great river Nile in Cairo looks muddy brown in color with all the drainage fluid in it.
If you happen to visit Hyderabad , you see the Nalahs or canals of sewage water flowing adjacent to many streets. These are open and always to the brim because the population density is very high in these areas. The so called underground drainage is very inadequate to deal with this amount of sewage and so it is let as raw sewage into these nalahs , stinking and leading to contamination of the drinking water pipes which are laid alongside of these Nalahs.
The obvious solution to this lies in diverting the sewage water to a sewage treatment plant which is very highly expensive and many are needed to treat such huge amount of sewage. Well, you can ask why not septic tanks and again the problem of overflowing soakpits. The University of Tanzania at Dares Salaam, has found a very cheap solution to this problem of soakpits. Their Engineering Department has devised a new and cheap method of dealing with this problem called Constructed Wetlands.It is essentially a 7 meter  trench 1m deep with sloping sides and covered by cement slabs. The plant called Matete in Swahili with botanical name Phregmatis Mauritanius is planted in the bed where there are small gaps in the floor . The plants use the water and the waste products in the sewage to grow upto almost 5-7 feet. They are used as fodder and roof in Tanzania. Since there is no surface water there is no mosquito problem. There is an inlet and outlet. The sewage water which flows in is cleaned by the plants and clean water flows out which can be used for irrigation purposes. This has got a pet name, namely Flower Pot. So it achieves the sewage treatment along with production of irrigation water as well as the plants. These plants are cut at the stem when they are fully mature and grow again. No need to plant them again. The size of the pot can be adjusted according to the amount of sewage water . At present it is used for individual houses . One such pot can be sufficient for three houses. with septic tanks. The water from the septic tank is flown into these pots. So basically it replaces the traditional soak pits which always overflows especially in the rainy season. There is no offensive smell as the plants completely remove all the offensive substances from the sewage water. Also it is being used in some schools, prisons and small communities.
 The person who owns this pot also earns money by selling these plants and also can have his own garden which can be watered by these plants. When we visited the University, we found that they are using this water for fish ponds.Many uses can be thought of also. Unfortunately I could not get the name of an equivalent plant available in India. It looks like bamboo but not bamboo. They say that the stem is very spongy . I thought that it could be Netti as we call in Tamil. I asked one of my former colleagues in NIN ( he is a PH.D. in Botany ) but he was not able to give the name of the Indian plant. Even industrial affluents can be similarly dealt with . I found in the literature that they can use cuscus plant( called Vettyver in Tamil ) which is used as thattis to cool the windows. It has got a beautiful smell.
I think that if only our officials take up such projects , we can solve the problem of Nalahs and also save our rivers, lakes and seas.