On 11/29/2015 8:22 AM, songbird wrote:
User Bp wrote:
songbird wrote:

some of them can be problems, in general if you are
going to use household waste water for the gardens it
is a good idea to switch to products which can be
biodegraded (often via what is called a reed bed) in
some manner before it gets to the gardens. some things
are toxic above small amounts so should not be used.

Are there detergents that really work and don't louse up
the water? Borax is obviously out of the question, bleaches
will have to be h2o2 based, but I think they're available.

dunno as i'm still stuck with septic system
and hate it. i'm not in the kind of setup that
i need perfectly white clothes that often nor do
i worry if some stain isn't completely removed.
i don't dribble on my clothes much anyways...
more often it's just dirt that needs to come out
and BO which washes out with a little soap.
sunshine and fresh air take care of sterilizing
and freshening enough for me.


the idea was that the soil should filter and clean the
remaining water coming from it, but they are discovering
that the soil does not clean it as much as expected so
effluent plumes are getting into the rivers and lakes.
Nutrients, or pathogens?

they detect human strains of e.coli, nutrients too
but some are digested in the tank, but once through
the tank to the groundwater leachfield most have little
more happen to them. this is why agricultural pollutants
in wells are being detected (blue baby syndrome), if the
ground was capable of actually digesting this stuff it
would be done... so it isn't and the price will be paid
by future generations in one way or another... if you
want something digested it has to be brought in
contact with the right bacteria/fungi/organisms which
most do not live down deep enough and are not active
enough to take care of it all. wetlands will do a lot of
cleanup and are a good alternative to agricultural and
also grey water, but best of all is to make sure toxins
aren't getting there to begin with.


in the end mixing human waste with water makes the
problem much worse than needed because then the human
waste has to be taken back out of the water anyways.
why not just keep it from the water to begin with? so
until people realize that the initial design is horribly
flawed we'll be stuck with this rotten and pollution
encouraging mess instead of doing things in a much
smarter way.

Composting toilets are a good option in low-density
environments, but would they work in higher density places,
say 10ksf lots, 3bd/2ba houses? What about apartments?

it takes a chamber to collect it and then someone to
move it after the chamber gets full. in a single house
you can design the chambers to the right size so that
they don't get emptied until the compost process is
complete (instead you just change which chamber things
go to when one gets full). that ways you only have to
move composted waste. worms and soil will take care of
it. leave it in a covered pile for a year or two and
there's no remaining issues with bacteria or smell.
needs to be covered though to keep rain from leaching
stuff away. prime garden/soil material when done.
if you're worried about bacteria after a year or two
you can bury it below the plants and use topsoil to
cover it and then nothing gets splashed on plant leaves
or produce.

for apartments the easiest system is gravity fed
chute to a chamber and then the chamber gets emptied
when it gets full and the waste is then composted in
some other location. they have trucks, sucker hoses,
etc. for doing things like this. just has to be be
done and going and then the biogas can be collected
too for burning as it's better to be done than letting
it escape unburned.


with cheap energy much becomes possible, but if you
design a smarter system that doesn't pollute water to
begin with you can avoid a lot of problems (and expenses).

Most of the developed world uses single-stream sewage collection
and already makes at least a token effort to clean up the wastewater.

unfortunately, it really doesn't work that well for
certain drugs, and mixing industrial pollution and other
waste water with human waste and clean water being used
as transport system is really poor design. we have done
it in the past because water was cheap and rivers acted
like wastewater treatment plants, but now they're finding
out that it doesn't work and the rivers smell like sewage
all the time and the animals are being affected by the
drugs, metals, cleaners, etc... so no, it's not really a
good system and it's going to only get worse with the
water being reduced (already they are having problems in
CA because the systems were designed to have so much water
in them and with the drought people aren't using enough
water... oops...).


With a little more effort and energy the water could be cleaned up
enough to go back in the supply. From what I gather, solar energy
in Germany has fallen to zero cost for portions of the day. The
same is apt to happen here if wind and solar investments continue.
Reverse osmosis plants can stop and start relatively quickly, that
seems like a good use for the excess energy.

water can be cleaned up, but you ignore the other side
of the equation, the rejected part of the water is even
more concentrated and unsuitable in many cases for uses
in gardens or agriculture.


Here's a link that some might find interesting on the subject of
reverse osmosis and its efficiency:

http://urila.tripod.com/Seawater.htm

The article focuses on seawater desalination but the discussion
makes it very clear that domestic wastewater is much more efficient
to recover, especially if the degree of desalination is modest.

Hope this is of interest,

they've been doing various projects around the world in
this vein for years. the resulting water is often pumped
into the the ground at some location or sent through a
wetland to make it acceptable at the other end for it to
be withdrawn and then used again (after being treated yet
again). it's a trick used to get people to accept it, but
it is horribly inefficient and expensive when compared to
an alternative system. the problem is that it is the
embedded system so it is hard to get people to change or
to see why the change is needed.

now if you can see the difference in how much those
pipes, pumps, water treatment plants, maintenance, etc.
all cost in comparison to what a dry composting system
would cost and what the maintenance would be. there's
just not enough money in it for the politicians to get
excited about it. not as much room for rewarding cronies,
not consumptive enough, doesn't generate enough taxes,
etc. and of course, people freak out about even thinking
of human waste, so much gets hidden in the waste stream
along with it. a convenient slight of hand for many...


songbird


Where I live, sewage (not merely gray water) is treated at a plant that
is mostly gravity fed. The input is from both residential and
commercial sources. At the plant, liquids are separated from solids.

Liquids are "tertiary" treated and then pumped back uphill to irrigate
parks, school playfields, greenbelts, and two golf courses. So far, the
use of such reclaimed water is not covered by drought-induced
restrictions. Furthermore, the ability to use this on school playfields
means it is biologically safe. However, the reclaimed water contains
too much dissolved minerals for domestic use. Because of that,
individual homeowners are not allowed to tap that source; there is a
concern that amateur plumbers -- the homeowners -- might accidentally
cross-connect a reclaimed water line with a potable domestic water line.
This concern about contaminating potable water with reclaimed water
also means that the mains carrying reclaimed water operate at a lower
pressure than potable mains.

The solids are composted to the extent that they too are biologically
safe. Dried, this compost is free to anyone who brings a container --
including a truck -- to the composting site. Again, the presence of
dissolved minerals (possibly heavy metals from commercial sources of
sewage) is a concern. Thus, users of the compost are advised to place
only a small amount in beds containing edible plants such as vegetables
and fruit trees. Larger amounts can be used on ornamental plants.

All this is a result of political pressure from homeowners downstream
from the sewage plant in Malibu. They wanted to restrict the plant's
operation because they feared they too would be required to abandon
their septic tanks and instead connect to sewer lines, thus opening
Malibu to increased development and population density. After the
sewage plant succeeded in developing a market for reclaimed water,
however, those same NIMBY homeowners changed their pressure to require
some of the reclaimed water to flow down Malibu Creek to maintain
riparian wildlife, including fish that had not been in the creek for
decades.

The natural flow of water in Malibu Creek above the sewage plant is
contaminated by wildlife in the Santa Monica Mountains National
Recreation Area. Now, the Malibu homeowners have convinced California
state authorities to mandate that the flow of water in the creek below
the sewage plant to be cleaner than the natural flow above the plant.

I pay over $500 a year in sewage fees for only my wife and me. There is
no winning, only different ways of losing.

--
David E. Ross
Climate: California Mediterranean, see
http://www.rossde.com/garden/climate.html
Gardening diary at http://www.rossde.com/garden/diary