The Vetiver grass will tolerate high levels of nitrates, phosphates, heavy metals, and agricultural chemicals. The Vetiver System can be used for treating wastewater, rehabilitating mine tailings, stabilizing landfills and general rubbish dumps. The Vetiver System takes up the toxic materials and confines the contaminates to the effected area.

The Vetiver grass will tolerate high levels of nitrates, phosphates, heavy metals, and agricultural chemicals.  The Vetiver System can be used for treating wastewater, rehabilitating mine tailings, stabilizing landfills and general rubbish dumps. The Vetiver System takes up the toxic materials and confines the contaminates to the effected area.

More details are available at galleries 1 and 2 and in the TVNI archives (see water and mining). The two handbooks at the bottom of this page provides good technical and field experience data and images.

Vetiver Phytoremediation Technology (VPT) -- Paul Truong is TVNI's Technical Director and a world authority on the use of vetiver grass technology for the treatment ofcontaminated land and water. We refer to this type of application as Vetiver Phytoremediation Technology (VPT) . He has recently prepared a useful photo essay on the use of VPT for waste water treatment, comparing the before and after impact of vetiver. There are also two water treatment programs one, in Singapore (using C.nemoralis instead of the more efficient C. zizanioides) that Paul helped design, and the other in Oman (usingPhragmites sp) designed by BAUER Umwelt GmbH of Germany). Both have interesting design features, and both could use C. zizanioidies. This slide show can be downloaded as a pdf file.

COMPUTER MODEL FOR TREATMENT OF SMALL VOLUME WASTEWATER
If you have problems with dealing with waste water and sewage effluent on your property you may be able to use the Vetiver System to eradicate it. This modelby Paul and Nicholas Truong shows you how, and the number of plants that you will need.

Treating Industrial waste water with Vetiver -- Here is a nice example from Paul Truong of how vetiver can be used for industrial or agricultural waste water treatment using floating pontoons (best design yet) and by planting on the banks of the lagoons. There is great potential to apply the Vetiver System for waste water treatment not only on industrial scale but also for smaller treatment needs for single households, small hospitals, hotels, schools, refugee camps, etc. using the alternative "wetland" vetiver application.