Humans are the most wasteful species on Earth. We generate the largest amounts of waste material, be it biological waste or other even more harmful kinds of waste like plastic bags which take tens to thousands of years to disintegrate! The first plastic bags ever produced are still probably clogging up a landfill somewhere! If you feel as strongly about the environment as I do, then you probably already know how invaluable good sewage treatment plants are. Sewers are the most vital infrastructure we can have because the most basic sign of the civilized or modern world is a good waste disposal system that is both effective and sustainable. The waste water that is discharged in large quantities from both homes and industries can turn our oceans into cesspools in no time at all if it is not treated and rendered safe before disposal. Fortunately, technology on this front is improving on a daily basis and there are many sustainable and practical methods that can be put to use for this purpose.
The basic function of sewage treatment plants is to remove contaminants from waste water and the ideal goal of such processes is to enable the reuse of at least a percentage of the waste water involved. There are many methods that can be used for the process, depending on the type of sewer system in place. The sewage can either be treated close to its origins in smaller treatment facilities or it can be transported to a public or municipal treatment facility through a system of pipes and pumps. Sewer systems can be either used to purify effluents from homes and industries or they can be combined with sewer systems that also carry away storm water.
Such combined systems need facilities of much larger capacity to deal with the amount of storm water that can enter the system after heavy rains. In fact, it was watching such a combined sewer system get overwhelmed by storm water and seeing puddles of sewage everywhere after one heavy downpour, which actually set me thinking about how we actually deal with waste water disposal! Without proper ways to deal with all the waste we create, can you even imagine what life will be like?!
The basic function of sewage treatment plants is to remove contaminants from waste water and the ideal goal of such processes is to enable the reuse of at least a percentage of the waste water involved. There are many methods that can be used for the process, depending on the type of sewer system in place. The sewage can either be treated close to its origins in smaller treatment facilities or it can be transported to a public or municipal treatment facility through a system of pipes and pumps. Sewer systems can be either used to purify effluents from homes and industries or they can be combined with sewer systems that also carry away storm water.
Such combined systems need facilities of much larger capacity to deal with the amount of storm water that can enter the system after heavy rains. In fact, it was watching such a combined sewer system get overwhelmed by storm water and seeing puddles of sewage everywhere after one heavy downpour, which actually set me thinking about how we actually deal with waste water disposal! Without proper ways to deal with all the waste we create, can you even imagine what life will be like?!
No comments:
Post a Comment