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COMPOSTING AND WASTE WATER TREATMENT
COMPOSTING TOILETS AND WASTE WATER
Oct 05 Composting Toilets - The Scoop On Poop
posted by ecospace
A certain almost-president’s documentary recently overwhelmed our country’s collective environmental mindset; regardless of whatever purpose for which the film had originally been intended, this is a massive feat in itself.
In this era of climate control, sport utility vehicles, and straight-from-the-store-into-your-belly food, it is admittedly easy to forget where we come from. Yet, one thing is for certain – no matter what political or societal niche we find for ourselves, no matter what kind of car we drive or restaurant we frequent - everybody poops.
Yes, it’s embarrassing. Imagine your favorite celebrity doing what any earthworm does too! Yes, we’ve been hiding it for hundreds of years. Sooner or later, however, we’ve got to give it some thought. The difference between a celebrity and an earthworm is that the worm puts it to good use. If you can recall any of your high school biology class, you’ll remember that everything in nature is linked to everything else, that when animal waste and dead plants rot, other plants grow.
Animals eat those plants and create waste, which rots and feeds new plants. Et voilà – an ecosystem in a nutshell. So, where are humans in the whole rotation of the universe? In this state of affairs, we are overseeing the cycles and hiding our own additions, thus polluting watersheds with excessive nitrogen and wasting water to no end to put our embarrassment out of sight and out of mind. If we can’t see it – it just doesn’t exist.
New ideas on the market are making poop something to be proud of again. Composting toilets, for example, allow us to set food in this decomposition cycle without compromising our status as most technologically brilliant beings. Essentially a waterless toilet, waste is sent to a receptacle beneath or connected to the toilet where it undergoes a process of aerating and breaking down by fungi and bacteria to become 10% to 30% of its original volume in the form of humus, a nutrient-rich fertilizing product. (oikos.com).
What makes this waterless toilet different from your standard Honey Bucket is the inclusion of a suction system that keeps the system odor-free, as well as its installment within the comforts of your own home; this not only makes it appear to be a regular potty, but it ensures that access will not be granted to construction workers.
One bonus to the composting toilet is that it allows you to compost nearly anything organic; this includes eggshells and coffee grinds, paper and cardboard, and even clothes made of natural fibers. The system is a bit expensive to begin with – roughly three times what it might cost you to install a standard toilet – but also makes sewage fees nearly nonexistent and greatly reduces water costs.
In widespread use, a community would cut down on sewage and garbage removal costs, reduce nutrient flow into bodies of water, thus reducing algae and the harm it causes to marine systems, and reduce the damage caused to the environment through manufacture of fertilization. (compostingtoilet.org)
A rest stop along Vermont’s Interstate 89 is taking excrement a step further. When the Vietnam War Memorial was in danger of shutting down in the mid 90s due to drainage issues, highway tax money was used to erect a living machine. Waste is pumped from the rest stop bathrooms to a large greenhouse, built to mimic the Vermont mountains. The greenhouse contains large concrete cylinders containing South Asian greenery and various accompanying organisms which filter the waste, eat up the nutrients, and help pump the water back to the toilets.
This technology is used by other industries, including schools, businesses, and local governments, and can potentially filter the water carefully enough to create drinking water more pure than what comes out of the faucet. (nytimes.com) Worrell Water Technologies (worrellwater.com) features two different kinds of living machines specifically for creating drinking water for larger gatherings of people – it would be tough to install one of these in your house, but may work very well in your office building. The systems are expensive, as all new technologies are, but eventually earn back their initial costs by saving on energy and labor costs, in addition to that warm, fuzzy feeling we’ll get when we know our waste is going to a good cause.
Fear not, blushing flushers! It is possible to be an environmentalist and avoid the icky stuff!
(An EcoSpace exclusive by Kathryn deBros)
=================================================================]
ECO MACHINE
http://www.toddecological.com/ecomachines/design.html
The ECO MACHINE tprocesses liquid/soild human waste and directs the water portion to groves of trees and bushes and the solids to composters. Eco-Machines accelerate nature's own water purification process. Unlike chemical-based systems, Eco-Machines incorporate helpful bacteria, fungi, plants, snails, clams, and fish that thrive by breaking down and digesting organic pollutants, pollutants that normally deprive the water of oxygen. This clean, simple approach efficiently transforms high-strength industrial wastewater and sewage into water clean enough to be recycled for reuse.
Eco-Machines accelerate nature's own water purification process. Unlike chemical-based systems, Eco-Machines incorporate helpful bacteria, fungi, plants, snails, clams, and fish that thrive by breaking down and digesting organic pollutants, pollutants that normally deprive the water of oxygen. This clean, simple approach efficiently transforms high-strength industrial wastewater and sewage into water clean enough to be recycled for reuse.
posted by ecospace
A certain almost-president’s documentary recently overwhelmed our country’s collective environmental mindset; regardless of whatever purpose for which the film had originally been intended, this is a massive feat in itself.
In this era of climate control, sport utility vehicles, and straight-from-the-store-into-your-belly food, it is admittedly easy to forget where we come from. Yet, one thing is for certain – no matter what political or societal niche we find for ourselves, no matter what kind of car we drive or restaurant we frequent - everybody poops.
Yes, it’s embarrassing. Imagine your favorite celebrity doing what any earthworm does too! Yes, we’ve been hiding it for hundreds of years. Sooner or later, however, we’ve got to give it some thought. The difference between a celebrity and an earthworm is that the worm puts it to good use. If you can recall any of your high school biology class, you’ll remember that everything in nature is linked to everything else, that when animal waste and dead plants rot, other plants grow.
Animals eat those plants and create waste, which rots and feeds new plants. Et voilà – an ecosystem in a nutshell. So, where are humans in the whole rotation of the universe? In this state of affairs, we are overseeing the cycles and hiding our own additions, thus polluting watersheds with excessive nitrogen and wasting water to no end to put our embarrassment out of sight and out of mind. If we can’t see it – it just doesn’t exist.
New ideas on the market are making poop something to be proud of again. Composting toilets, for example, allow us to set food in this decomposition cycle without compromising our status as most technologically brilliant beings. Essentially a waterless toilet, waste is sent to a receptacle beneath or connected to the toilet where it undergoes a process of aerating and breaking down by fungi and bacteria to become 10% to 30% of its original volume in the form of humus, a nutrient-rich fertilizing product. (oikos.com).
What makes this waterless toilet different from your standard Honey Bucket is the inclusion of a suction system that keeps the system odor-free, as well as its installment within the comforts of your own home; this not only makes it appear to be a regular potty, but it ensures that access will not be granted to construction workers.
One bonus to the composting toilet is that it allows you to compost nearly anything organic; this includes eggshells and coffee grinds, paper and cardboard, and even clothes made of natural fibers. The system is a bit expensive to begin with – roughly three times what it might cost you to install a standard toilet – but also makes sewage fees nearly nonexistent and greatly reduces water costs.
In widespread use, a community would cut down on sewage and garbage removal costs, reduce nutrient flow into bodies of water, thus reducing algae and the harm it causes to marine systems, and reduce the damage caused to the environment through manufacture of fertilization. (compostingtoilet.org)
A rest stop along Vermont’s Interstate 89 is taking excrement a step further. When the Vietnam War Memorial was in danger of shutting down in the mid 90s due to drainage issues, highway tax money was used to erect a living machine. Waste is pumped from the rest stop bathrooms to a large greenhouse, built to mimic the Vermont mountains. The greenhouse contains large concrete cylinders containing South Asian greenery and various accompanying organisms which filter the waste, eat up the nutrients, and help pump the water back to the toilets.
This technology is used by other industries, including schools, businesses, and local governments, and can potentially filter the water carefully enough to create drinking water more pure than what comes out of the faucet. (nytimes.com) Worrell Water Technologies (worrellwater.com) features two different kinds of living machines specifically for creating drinking water for larger gatherings of people – it would be tough to install one of these in your house, but may work very well in your office building. The systems are expensive, as all new technologies are, but eventually earn back their initial costs by saving on energy and labor costs, in addition to that warm, fuzzy feeling we’ll get when we know our waste is going to a good cause.
Fear not, blushing flushers! It is possible to be an environmentalist and avoid the icky stuff!
(An EcoSpace exclusive by Kathryn deBros)
=================================================================]
ECO MACHINE
http://www.toddecological.com/ecomachines/design.html
The ECO MACHINE tprocesses liquid/soild human waste and directs the water portion to groves of trees and bushes and the solids to composters. Eco-Machines accelerate nature's own water purification process. Unlike chemical-based systems, Eco-Machines incorporate helpful bacteria, fungi, plants, snails, clams, and fish that thrive by breaking down and digesting organic pollutants, pollutants that normally deprive the water of oxygen. This clean, simple approach efficiently transforms high-strength industrial wastewater and sewage into water clean enough to be recycled for reuse.
ECO MACHINE CASE STUDIES, MAIN PAGE:
BURLINGTON, VT, INDUSTRIAL WASTE TREATMENT CASE STUDY
http://www.toddecological.com/files/case-studies/tyson.pdf
==================================================================================
The Living Machine:
Living machines
The living machine at Oberlin College with a settlement tank in the foreground and filtering tanks in the background
Living Machines are a form of biological wastewater treatment designed to mimic the cleansing functions of wetlands. They are intensive bioremediation systems that can also produce beneficial by-products such as methane gas, edible and ornamental plants, and fish. Aquatic and wetland plants, bacteria, algae, protozoa, plankton, snails, clams, fish and other organisms are used in the system to provide specific cleansing or trophic functions. In temperate climates, the system of tanks, pipes and filters is housed in a greenhouse to raise the temperature, and thus the rate of biological activity.
The initial development of living machines is generally credited to John Todd, and evolved out of the bioshelter concept developed at the now-defunct New Alchemy Institute. Living Machine is a trademarked term held by Living Designs Group, LLC of Taos, New Mexico. Living machines fall within the emerging discipline of ecological engineering, and many similar systems are built in Europe without being dubbed “Living Machines
==============================================================================================
USE OF WASTE WATER FOR ECO PARK
From dairy raw waste water to bird park
http://www.ayala-nbs.com/content.aspx?lang=en&id=108
The planned CW system will treat the water all the way from its raw phase to the final stage. Constructed wetlands are able to cope with a large variety of pollutants including heavy metals, salts, Boron, Hydrocarbons, Pathogenic microorganisms, and of course BOD, COD, TSS and other standard parameters for measuring wastewater quality. The water in constructed wetlands can support life in reservoirs, rivers, or on land First stage: A separator in milking area outlet. Our design separates straw and most of the organic particles on the first stage.
This design reduces the potential for elevated dissolved organic load in the water. The separation is being done by a combination of aggregates as mechanical separator in which special plants are growing. These plants help breaking down the accumulated organics. In between we leave settling chambers which we can clean with a tractor when needed. This sludge will be dried on a special surface and then be used as compost. Second stage: underground settling chamber.
Designed for a settling time of more than 24h. It contains 3 chambers in a row. The first one is divided to enable pumping out sludge during operation with no interruption to the process. Third stage: Constructed wetland. Since topography did not allow gravitational flow, the water is pumped from the settling chamber to the CW.
The CW system is composed of two parallel rows with 7 ponds in each. The surface area of each pond is 640 Sq/m. the two rows design allows us more flexibility in the operation. It also increases the landscaping effect that we achieve The purified water drains to the bird observation lake and from there the access water is used for irrigation.
This system marks a new approach achieving a few targets:
1. Use of mechanical-phytobiological elements as first stage treatment of dairy sewage
2. Complete ecological system that treats agriculture and municipal sewage within the same process.
3. Attempt not to use any power demanding mechanism at all
4. Purifying the sewage water in situ, and reusing it as a source of a new income
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Living_machines
Jump to: navigation, search
The living machine at Oberlin College with a settlement tank in the foreground and filtering tanks in the background
Living Machines are a form of biological wastewater treatment designed to mimic the cleansing functions of wetlands. They are intensive bioremediation systems that can also produce beneficial by-products such as methane gas, edible and ornamental plants, and fish. Aquatic and wetland plants, bacteria, algae, protozoa, plankton, snails, clams, fish and other organisms are used in the system to provide specific cleansing or trophic functions. In temperate climates, the system of tanks, pipes and filters is housed in a greenhouse to raise the temperature, and thus the rate of biological activity.
The initial development of living machines is generally credited to John Todd, and evolved out of the bioshelter concept developed at the now-defunct New Alchemy Institute. Living Machine is a trademarked term held by Living Designs Group, LLC of Taos, New Mexico. Living machines fall within the emerging discipline of ecological engineering, and many similar systems are built in Europe without being dubbed “Living Machines
USE OF WASTE WATER FOR ECO PARK
From dairy raw waste water to bird park
http://www.ayala-nbs.com/content.aspx?lang=en&id=108
The planned CW system will treat the water all the way from its raw phase to the final stage. Constructed wetlands are able to cope with a large variety of pollutants including heavy metals, salts, Boron, Hydrocarbons, Pathogenic microorganisms, and of course BOD, COD, TSS and other standard parameters for measuring wastewater quality. The water in constructed wetlands can support life in reservoirs, rivers, or on land First stage: A separator in milking area outlet. Our design separates straw and most of the organic particles on the first stage.
This design reduces the potential for elevated dissolved organic load in the water. The separation is being done by a combination of aggregates as mechanical separator in which special plants are growing. These plants help breaking down the accumulated organics. In between we leave settling chambers which we can clean with a tractor when needed. This sludge will be dried on a special surface and then be used as compost. Second stage: underground settling chamber.
Designed for a settling time of more than 24h. It contains 3 chambers in a row. The first one is divided to enable pumping out sludge during operation with no interruption to the process. Third stage: Constructed wetland. Since topography did not allow gravitational flow, the water is pumped from the settling chamber to the CW.
The CW system is composed of two parallel rows with 7 ponds in each. The surface area of each pond is 640 Sq/m. the two rows design allows us more flexibility in the operation. It also increases the landscaping effect that we achieve The purified water drains to the bird observation lake and from there the access water is used for irrigation.
This system marks a new approach achieving a few targets:
1. Use of mechanical-phytobiological elements as first stage treatment of dairy sewage
2. Complete ecological system that treats agriculture and municipal sewage within the same process.
3. Attempt not to use any power demanding mechanism at all
4. Purifying the sewage water in situ, and reusing it as a source of a new income
Re-using water has benefits for communities and businesses
http://www.ecy.wa.gov/news/2001news/2001-024.html
Sequim, in Clallam Co., reclaims its treated waste water and uses it in various ways, including irrigating the landscape at the Carrie Blake Park, which is also an educational/promotional site that teaches others about the benefits of reclaimed water. The water also is pumped into wetlands that feed a small creek that has been short on water. With a 100 percent reclaimed treatment plant, the city's wastewater plant would no longer have a discharge and that means less pollution goes into the Straits of Juan de Fuca. That effort will help reopen shellfish beds that were near the discharge
Ten other reclaimed-water projects have also been constructed in Washington, with 14 more projects planned during the next few years.
CONTACT: Mary Getchell, Public Information Manager ; pager,
Kathy Cupps, Project Coordinator,
For more information: http://www.ecy.wa.gov/biblio/0010062.html
=========================================================================]
Choctaw Eco-Industrial Park : an ecological approach to industrial land-use planning and design
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1656846
Résumé / Abstract
This project investigates the concepts of industrial ecology and eco-industrial parks and applies those concepts to the redesign of an existing industrial park in Choctaw, OK. The opportunity for developing an eco-industrial park on this site comes from the availability of waste water for non-potable water needs, and the abundance of waste tires as raw materials for products to drive a new set of industrial partnerships. These industrial partnerships include the City of Choctaw Waste Water Treatment Plant, a tire shredding company, a tire pyrolysis company, a hydroponics industry, a hard rubber tire manufacturer, a screen printer, a plastics manufacturer, a toner manufacturer, and a toner cartridge manufacturer. The nature of this relationship and the design of the eco-industrial park is contained within this report. The result of this investigation is a new, common sense, approach to industrial land use that combines economic growth and environmental protection.Revue / Journal Title
Landscape and urban planning ISSN 0169-2046 CODEN LUPLEZSource / Source
1998, vol. 42, no 2-4 (232 p.) (26 ref.), pp. 239-257Langue / Language
AnglaisEditeur / Publisher
Elsevier, Amsterdam, PAYS-BAS (1986) (Revue)==============================================================
WETLAND PLANT SELECTION FOR WASTE WATER TREATMENT AND BIOMASS
CANA BRAVA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gynerium_sagittatum
It is known as "Cana-do-rio" in Brazil and "caña brava" in Peru and called "bitter cane" in Venezuela. The stems range between three and ten meters in height
Gynerium sagittatum, known locally by various common names, is a tall grass that grows up to five meters long. It is a very vigorous species that grows into a considerably dense mass of vegetation. It is harvested as a semi-crop in some localities to be distributed commercially, mainly in Latin America. It belongs to the subfamily Arundinoidea
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