Sludge Watch ==> Be Self - Sufficient: recycle your own sewage - Australia

[Maureen Reilly]

Sludgewatch Admin:

This looks promising...particularly in arid areas....California, Nevada, Arizona 
and areas with fragile and limited groundwater...Florida etc.

Urban areas on the south side of the Great Lakes where there is already substantial depletion
of groundwater could utilize this water saving technology  and protect the Great Lakes waters
in both quantity and quality.  That way communities outside the Great Lakes watershed could meet
their water needs without sucking  Great Lakes water and then flushing that water to 
the Mississippi and out of the Great Lakes watershed forever.

..............................................................................


http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/be-selfsufficient-recycle-your-own-sewage/2006/06/16/1149964746490.html


Australia 
Sydney Morning Herald

Be self-sufficient: recycle your own sewage
Richard Macey
June 17, 2006
HOMES and apartment blocks could halve their water use by installing revolutionary sewage recycling technology, Sydney scientists say.

About the size of four refrigerators, it uses bacteria and fungi to convert sewage into water fit for gardens, flushing toilets and cleaning.

"You could even do your laundry in it," said Tony Taylor, the research team's leader.

While not clean enough to drink, the recycled water could significantly reduce Sydney's demand for the precious liquid.

Running costs would be about $1.30 a kilolitre, about the same price as Sydney's town water is now. However, in large regional recycling plants, for about $1.50 a kilolitre the recycled water could be drinkable.

Dr Taylor, a microbiologist at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, said it was a spin-off from nuclear research at Lucas Heights to develop antibiotics and environmental repair technology.

Exactly how the system, dubbed a nano-particulate membrane bio-reactor, works is secret, but Dr Taylor described it as a series of "gills".

A home would need a unit, costing about $2000, fitted with 40 to 50 gills - membranes, or panels - each about one metre by 1.5 metres. Sewage flowing down the middle of each gill would seep through, feeding bacteria and fungi growing on the outside.

The bacteria and fungi would eat the waste, using oxygen from the air to remove nutrients and toxins. So, it was also "a stomach and a lung". "We are aiming at reducing water consumption at the house by 40 to 60 per cent. You would still have sewage leaving the house, but it would first go around two or three times."

While existing sewage treatment plants already use bacteria, the new technology was significantly more efficient, and a fifth the cost.

Conventional treatment systems also use oxygen, creating bubbles in the sewage. "But bubbles are very expensive to make," Dr Taylor said. "They use a lot of electricity, producing lots of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels."

The technology could make money by linking sewage recycling with prawn, yabby and fish farming. Organisms grown on the bio-reactor could be harvested as their food.

Dr Taylor, who conceded that diners might not want to know how their seafood had been raised, said his team was looking for commercial partners.

Initially, he predicted, the biggest market would be in rural areas, where water had to be trucked in.
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