The World Commission on Water estimated that by 2025 more than half of the world’s population will be without sustainable water resources1. In many cases, the wastewater treatment sector resembles a risk-averse elderly person that isn’t willing to consider new technology and tends to persist with age-old ways that are ‘tried and tested’. While the traditional methods (sewage systems) have worked extremely well in the past, the conditions of our world are changing and a new wave of challenges means that it is time to embrace new technology.
Decentralization is a move towards site-specific wastewater treatment – it is a technical approach rather than a blanket strategy. Decentralized wastewater treatment systems (DWTS) are a proven technology with well-established science… Not to mention DWTS have the ability to treat wastewater to the same quality as centralized systems at a much lower cost2!
Modern design techniques are being used around the world to treat domestic wastewater on a scale of singles homes to small communities3. Two perfect examples of this can be seen in the Gold Coast, Australia, where two communalities4 – Capo di Monte (CDM) and Currumbin Ecovillage (CEV) – run off DWTS. The two communities systems are:
- CDM: 46 lots, communal rainwater tanks with bore water top-up and cluster scale wastewater treatment and recycling
- CEV: 110 lots, rainwater tanks at each house for potable water and reuse of wastewater treated on a communal scale plant for non-potable purposes.
These decentralised systems treat water to the regulated level, even better than centralised systems at CDM! The recycling and rainwater harvesting systems provide 90% of the community’s water needs, with the remainder made up an on-site bore.
When you can get the right ingredients you have to change the recipe… so when conditions surrounding water are changing why aren’t we changing the systems?
Keep #wastewaterthinking
References
1 – https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=csiro:EP129965&dsid=DS5
2 – https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-06/documents/20130306mou_webinar_casey.pdf
4 – https://publications.csiro.au/rpr/download?pid=csiro:EP129965&dsid=DS5
wastewater thinking 