Innovative

On-site and Decentralised

Sewage Treatment,

Recycling and Management

Systems in

Northern Europe & the USA

Report of a study tour - February to November 2000

Sarah M. West, 30 June 2003

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Researcher and Principal Author

Sarah Marie West Australia

sarahmwest@gmx.net http://sarahwest.cjb.net

This report is a synthesis of the findings of Sarah West’s study tour in the UK, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Germany, Switzerland and the USA in the year 2000, with additional information from a one week study tour in

New Zealand in July 2001. The information was updated by each organisation in 2003.

No copyright is asserted. The author asks that any use of the material contained in this report be used in context and be accompanied by an acknowledgement of the source document.

Permission to copy & use the photos contained in this report will need to be sort from the photographer.

Acknowledgements:

To Steve Baxter To Dr Cynthia Mitchell Sydney Water Corporation Institute of Sustainable Futures, UTS with gratitude with gratitude for also seeing the vision for the invaluable contacts for thinking outside the box for widening my thinking and for trusting in me. and for all her kind support.

This report does not represent the official position of the Sydney Water Corporation, but is purely the results of the findings of Sarah West’s

overseas research tour.

However, Sydney Water contributed significantly to the success of this investigation through its generous financial and in-kind support.

This support is gratefully acknowledged and appreciated.

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Until one is committed,

there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents, and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.

(W.H.Murray, Scotland 1951)

Whatever you can do, or dream you can,

begin it.

Boldness has genius, magic and power in it.

Begin it now.

(Goethe, Germany 1749 – 1832)

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CONTENTS: Pages

The Journey 6 The Inspiration 6 The Funding 7 Background to Research Proposal 7 Benefits to Sydney Water 8 Outcomes to Overseas Research 9 Making Contact 9 Sustainable Solutions 11 The Best Practice Model for Decentralised Sewerage 12 Management and Telemetry 13 Management and Community Education 13 Watertight Collection 14 Watertight Reticulation 16 Treatment 17 Disinfection 18 Effluent Reuse 18 Installation Costs 18 Operating Costs 19 Ripple Effects 20 Scotland 22

1. Robert Gordon University 22 2. University of Abertay 23 3. Living Water 24 4. Watershed Systems Ltd / Rockbourne 26 5. Living Technologies Ltd 26

England 28 6. Newcastle University 28 7. University of Leeds 28 8. Hockerton Housing Project 29 9. The Earth Centre 30 10. Environ 31 11. Cranfield University 31 12. Severn Trent Water 32 13. WPL Limited 32 14. Elemental Solutions 33

Wales 34 15. Centre for Alternative Technology 34

The Netherlands 36 16. Eindhoven Technological University 36 17. Wageningen University 37 18. Centre for Ecological Technology 37 19. Van Hall Instituut 38 20. AqN-Consult 39

Norway 40 21. Agricultural University of Norway 40 22. Optiroc Group AB 43 23. Salsnes Filter 43

Sweden 44 24. Swedish Water and Wastewater Association 44 25. VA Projects 45 26. VERNA Ecology 45 27. Stockholm Water 47

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28. Swedish Institute of Agricultural & Environmental Engineering 48 29. Understenshöjden Ecovillage 48 30. Water Revival Systems Uppsala AB 49 31. Järna Anthroposophical Initiative 50 32. Stensund Folk College 51 33. Smeden Ecovillage 52 34. Aquatron International AB 53 35. Göteborg University 54 36. MISTRA 55 37. Scandiconsult 55 38. Chalmers University of Technology 55 39. Volvo Conference Centre 56 40. Lund University 57 41. Luleå University of Technology 59

Denmark 59 42. Folkecenter for Renewable Energy 60 43. Technical University of Denmark 61 44. Hjortshöj Ecovillage 62 45. Krüger A/S 63 46. Killian Water 64 47. Dyssekilde Ecovillage 65

Germany 66 48. OtterWasser GmbH 66 49. Oekotec Eco-Engineering 67

Switzerland 68 50. EAWAG 68 51. Ecocentre Schwatteid 69

U.S.A. 70 52. Ecological Engineering Group LLC 70 53. Aquapoint Inc. 72 54. Lombardo Associates Inc. 74 55. Ocean Arks International 75 56. Stone Environmental Inc. 76 57. Cornell University 77 58. Onsite Systems Inc. 78 59. Orenco Systems Inc. 80 60. Natural Systems International LLC 81 61. Iasis Systems Group 82 62. Bio-microbics, Inc. 83 63. Zenon 84 64. University of California, Davis 84

Conferences and Useful Organisations 86 Appendices 87 A Centralised Management: the key to successful onsite sewerage service 87 B Innovations from Scandinavia: increasing the potential for reuse 94 C Decentralised Sewerage Service 101 D On-site NewZ Special Report 01/2 Innovative Decentralised Sewerage 105 E Tips for Australians & New Zealanders planning an overseas study tour 111 With Gratitude to the Additional Photographers C.Porter - Clare Porter, Australian Water Association (AWA), Artarmon NSW. C.Hensch - Christoph Hensch, PLANET Organic, New Zealand

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Innovative On-site and Decentralised* Sewage Treatment, Recycling and Management

in Northern Europe and the USA This is a report of the findings from a study tour of the best practice in small community scale (<2000 EP) ecologically sustainable sewage treatment, management and reuse systems in northern Europe and the USA, undertaken from February to November in the year 2000. The Journey The journey was actually a dual study tour where 5 months were spent searching for (and sometimes finding) innovative sewerage systems and the other 5 months researching 23 ecovillages (ie ecological intentional communities). It was a life-changing, challenging and wonderful journey. I felt guided and ‘in the flow’ from the first moment that I ‘knew’ I was going to undertake this huge journey, even though there were many times when I was scared and out of my comfort zone. But ‘feeling the fear and doing it anyway’ is a profound experience and I treasure my challenges, my bravery and my success. I feel privileged and blessed to have met so many generous, hospitable and knowledgeable colleagues and made so many new friends overseas. From being a girl living on a seemingly isolated continent downunder I am now a global citizen, and I greatly value and gain immense satisfaction and inspiration from being a part of the global water industry and ecovillage networks. The Inspiration The idea for the study tour came to me during my studies in water resources management for my Masters of Environmental Management at the University of New England (Armidale, NSW). As an employee of Sydney Water I reflected upon the fact that we, as an organisation and Sydney, as a city and community, spend many millions of dollars sewering small villages on the urban fringes and in the rural areas of the Hawkesbury-Nepean and Illawarra catchments, by connecting them to the large centralised sewage treatment plants with huge, expensive (and often leaky) pipelines which traverse the countryside for many kilometres. I felt that there must be another way. A way that would save money, save the environment and look and feel good. Through my studies it became clear that there may be a vast wealth of small scale or decentralised sewerage technologies specially designed to service small communities, which we in Australia were mostly unaware of. And not only would these systems be greatly cheaper to construct, operate and maintain, there would be a reduction in adverse environmental impacts, and also many environmental and social benefits. Access to these overseas technologies would give Sydney Water a broader range of options for servicing existing communities, new developments on ‘greenfield’ and ‘brownfield’ sites and for sewer mining. Subsequent expertise in the design, construction, operation, maintenance and management of these small scale decentralised or community sewerage systems could enable Sydney Water to help service the growing sanitation needs of our neighbours in the Pacific and Asian regions. * The term ‘decentralised’ is relative to Sydney Water’s centralised sewerage systems. What Sydney Water refers to as ‘decentralised’ or ‘community scale’ is called ‘centralised’ in rural New South Wales.

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The Funding I took 9 months leave-without-pay (LWP) and 1 month’s holiday to accomplish this task that I had set myself. I submitted a funding proposal to Sydney Water and asked for my expenses (accommodation, food and land travel) to be paid for 3 months of the trip. Cost estimates were based on the daily rates paid on a Churchill Fellowship for those countries in which I was travelling ie one month worth of expenses for each of the UK, northern Europe and the USA. Two managers of the Customer Services Division of Sydney Water, Peter Mayhook and Steve Baxter, agreed to this proposal and kindly funded my expenses for those 3 months. I paid the airfares and expenses for the other 7 months, two of which were also wholly devoted to on-site and decentralised sewerage research. I spent the other 5 months researching 23 ecovillages, many of which also had innovative community sewerage systems. In addition, the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology Sydney, with which I was enrolled in a PhD, kindly paid for the Alterative Wastewater Technology Course I did at the Agricultural University of Norway. My personal investment in this project in terms of expenses paid for the other 7 months of the tour, salary not received during the 9 months LWP and additional unpaid hours worked over the last 4 years is equivalent to more than AUS$200,000. Below is an excerpt from the funding proposal submitted to Sydney Water in 1999: “Background to Research Proposal

In the Sydney region wastewater systems are polarized between large centralised reticulated

systems and individual household on-site disposal systems. There are disadvantages with

both systems in normal operation and particularly when they malfunction. In both cases the

environment, especially receiving waters, are degraded and public health can be put at risk.

Centralised reticulated sewage treatment systems (STS) are very expensive to build and

maintain. Alternative small community scale STS are prevalent and socially acceptable in

North America, Europe and New Zealand. Small community scale STS employ a range of

treatment modalities from high-tech Memtec-style systems to low-tech wetlands. Systems in

between these two ends of the spectrum include liquid composting, urine separation,

constructed reedbeds, floating macrophytes in waste stabilisation ponds, sand filters and the

proprietary systems Living Machines and Solar Aquatics.

Many sections of the community and government authorities are asking for alternatives to

centralised reticulated STS and individual on-site systems. In the Hawkesbury-Nepean

catchment there are 51 unsewered towns listed as ‘backlog’ in Sydney Water’s Area of

Operations. Most of these towns have a population of less than 2000. As it is not

economically viable to provide a conventional sewerage system to any of these backlog

sewerage villages, unless they are close to an existing system, SWC may wish to consider

new products to offer this customer base. A small community scale STS may be a cost-

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effective, safe and reliable alternative to the conventional sewage system for some of these

towns. Being closer to the customer, small-scale STSs are readily viewed as community

assets and an attitude of ‘ownership’ can be developed. This has implications for changing

customer behaviour such as reduced water demand and avoidance of the use of undesirable

chemicals and foreign objects in the system. With local responsibility for the system, the

reuse potential can be more readily explored with the community.

Benefits to Sydney Water

In the next 5 years it is possible that SWC may have competition in the provision of

wastewater management services in its Area of Operations. It is proposed that the

information gained from this research will help place SWC in a strong competitive position

against overseas corporations that will have this alternative wastewater management

expertise.

The aim of this research is to give SWC a competitive advantage in the provision of leading-

edge sewerage technology by installing systems that are cost-effective, meet the needs and

values of the community, protects the environment and public health, and are ecologically

sustainable. An outcome will be that sewage is valued as a resource, to be ‘value-added’, not

a waste product.

The outcome of my investigations will add value to the Corporation at the policy, systems

management and customer levels, and has the potential to attract a high level of interest from

regulators, politicians, customers and community groups.

The potential benefits of a local, small community scale ecologically sustainable STS

include:

lower construction costs (avoids linking the town to Sydney’s sewage system, reducing

the cost of trenching, piping and pumping stations)

lower maintenance costs (no long distance pipes to replace, reduced number of pumping

stations to service, operational/maintenance can be contracted out to local service

providers)

system is not a financial liability to SWC or the rest of Sydney’s water rate payers

professional maintenance of the system (compared to on-site disposal systems)

beneficial reuse of effluent and biosolids

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ease of monitoring contaminants

prompt feedback loop from STS to householders

fosters sense of local responsibility for wastewater

opportunities for water sensitive urban design

community participation in decision making

sustainable local solutions.

Outcomes of Overseas Research

identification of small community scale ecologically sustainable sewage treatment and

reuse systems appropriate to environmental conditions of the Sydney region

identification of potential for value-adding to sewage resource

expanded criteria upon which options reports are based

written report on study tour

4 reports (written and photographic) on a variety of sewage systems published in ‘Splash’

talks with video footage to interested teams within Sydney Water upon return.”

Making Contact or researching what to see, who to meet, where to go and how to get there The countries I visited, in chronological order, were Scotland, England, Wales, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland and the USA. To find contacts in the wastewater industry in these countries I spent 6 months prior to my departure on 31 January 2000 asking colleagues within Sydney Water, NSW government departments, my universities (Macquarie, UNE, UTS), the Australian Water Association (AWA), the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and other industry organisations for leads and suggestions. From my Master’s degree at UNE I was familiar with a number of key international professionals doing innovative research. The Australian Onsite ’99 Conference in Armidale (www.lanfaxlabs.com.au) was very valuable in giving me a greater understanding of onsite and decentralised sewerage and most importantly, direct contact with two influential professionals from the US - Dr George Tchobanoglous from University of California, Davis and Bruce Douglas from Stone Environmental in Vermont, both of whom I subsequently visited. However, most of my overseas contacts were sourced from email listservers particularly the one hosted by the University of Newcastle in the UK (www.mailbase.ac.uk) and another hosted by the US National Small Flows Clearinghouse (decentralised@valley.rtpnc.epa.gov) . I broadcast my background, purpose, itinerary, and request for contacts, suggestions and information on innovative small scale decentralised sewerage systems. I received nearly 40 replies from experts in the wastewater industry, many of whom I later visited. I did not follow up on all contacts because many were offering information on wetland systems and dry composting toilets and although these systems certainly have their useful place, I felt that the Australian industry was already well represented by these technologies. I wanted to

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concentrate my efforts on technologies that were unknown or little known in Australia. This meant that at times my overseas investigations came to a dead end because the technology was not innovative or different from what we already had in Australia. Indeed when I began my study tour of the UK I was asked by many professionals “what are you doing here ? Australia is far more innovative than we are !” And that did turn out to be the case for most (but not all) of Scotland and England. However, near the end of my European tour I was told that Ireland is very innovative in designing small scale sewerage systems, but there was no available time to go there. In January 2000 I enrolled in a Ph.D at the University of Technology, Sydney through the Institute of Sustainable Futures, to provide clarity and focus for the research I was about to do overseas. Dr Stuart White was my supervisor and Dr Cynthia Mitchell from Sydney University my co-supervisor. This step was very valuable as it opened many doors and gave me a higher level of credibility with the organisations I visited. (Upon returning to Sydney I withdrew from the Ph.D because I realised I could ‘make a difference’ to the water industry with the information I had brought back without the Ph.D – I posted 47 kg of literature home from Europe and carried 9 kg of literature home from the US.) Most of my visits were to universities, water authorities, private wastewater consultants, industry manufacturers and ecovillages. In retrospect it would have also been useful to have made contact with Australian subsidiaries of international companies and visited their partner or the parent company overseas. This report gives a synopsis of the innovative small scale sewerage technologies that I found in each of the countries visited. Appendices A, B & C are papers that I have written since my return and Appendix D is a transcription of my 2 hour powerpoint presentation delivered in Auckland, New Zealand in June 2001. (To date I have delivered 105 presentations). All the individuals and organisations that I visited, plus several others at the leading edge of their field that I only had time to telephone, are listed in the body of the report. There were of course many more people other than those listed that I phoned or emailed that I did not visit, either because they did not have a technology that was innovative, or there was insufficient time to follow every lead. However, those phone calls were very valuable in providing an overview of the onsite and decentralised sewerage industry in each country, to get further suggestions of who and what to visit, and to get referrals. Many doors were opened this way. My office was usually a public phone box by the side of the road or in a petrol station or supermarket and in internet cafes. To be on the move for 9 months, making phone calls and emails from mostly public places, to find out information, arrange appointments and many times rearrange appointments as yet another ‘must see’ sewerage system or ecovillage was found along the way, plus organising a place to stay, took an enormous amount of time and effort, but the process was just as important and satisfying as the site visits. The tenth month was spent doing a 4 week ecovillage training course in northern Scotland. See Appendix E for more details on the ‘process’ of travelling.

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Sustainable Solutions Europe gave me pieces of the jigsaw, but Tennessee gave me the framework and the complete picture of a sustainable sewerage service (see Appendix E). Although I did find a number of advanced small scale treatment technologies in Europe that are applicable to our needs in Australia, I was delighted to find a fully developed system for decentralised / community scale sewerage service in the USA. I ‘discovered’ this model when I visited Onsite Systems Inc., a private water utility in Tennessee. On-site Systems designs, installs and manages decentralised systems and runs training courses in decentralised sewerage best practices for their industry colleagues. I subsequently found that many other private water utilities, home-owner associations, wastewater consultancies and a public water utility in the USA are also designing and managing decentralised sewerage systems based on this best practice model. In July 2001 I conducted a study tour of small scale sewerage in New Zealand and found that ‘Innoflow Technologies Ltd’, a wastewater consultancy in Auckland, has been designing, installing and managing the same model of decentralised sewerage service since they began importing advanced technology (Orenco Systems) from the USA in 1994. This is the model for best practice in sewerage service that I have been promoting since my return to Sydney Water in December 2000. The components of this system are:

1. wastewater source control 2. watertight collection units 3. watertight reticulation 4. advanced onsite treatment systems reconfigured to service a cluster / village / town 5. Ultra-Violet disinfection 6. effluent recycling and reuse 7. centralised management facilitated by remote monitoring.

The US EPA also promotes this model of best practice small scale sewerage service through a series of manuals, technical sheets and management guidelines. www.nesc.wvu.edu/nsfc

STEP / STEG Model of Decentralised Sewerage Diagram: Orenco Systems

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The Best Practice Model for Decentralised Sewerage In the USA and New Zealand (NZ) this best practice model is based on watertight septic tanks on each property (in the cluster, sub-division or town) acting as the collection and primary treatment units for a reticulated wastewater system with a single (or multiple) treatment plant. The treatment systems are based on advanced onsite technology (ie sand, textile and other trickling filters) that have been reconfigured to service from two houses up to several thousand. The most cost effective and best practice in treatment technology, are for example Orenco sand filters and textile filters and Aquapoint ‘Bioclere’ trickling filters. The effluent is invariably reused locally. The benefits of the system are that because the solids are retained in the septic interceptor tank (or aerobic wet composting tank) the pipe sizes can be reduced. If a pipe does break, relatively clear effluent is discharged not raw sewage. Households do not have (soggy) infiltration trenches in their yards, giving them more useable land or allowing smaller house blocks to be designed in new sub-divisions. Community reticulation and treatment enables professional sewerage service instead of household responsibility or lack of it. Through subsequent investigations back in Australia I found that the decentralised model in Tennessee and other parts of the USA, is based on the Septic Tank Effluent Drainage Schemes (STEDS) which officially commenced in South Australia (SA) in 1970. The basic components of the South Australian STEDS system are:

1. septic tank on each property 2. gravity reticulation connecting all the septic tanks to a single treatment plant 3. treatment plant – originally facultative ponds or lagoons, but more recently activated

sludge plants (and one membrane technology plant) 4. effluent reuse on grass or vegetables or discharge to creeks 5. council management of the treatment plant and householder management of the septic

tanks. Other terms that are used for this model or variations of it are: CED - common effluent drainage MEDS - modified effluent drainage system (NZ) STEG - septic tank effluent gravity STEP - septic tank effluent pump LPPS - low pressure pumping system (using septic tank effluent filter pumps) The USA has further developed the South Australian STED model for community scale sewerage by adding:

1. a watertight septic tank 2. an effluent or outlet filter in the septic tank 3. watertight Septic Tank Effluent Gravity (STEG) reticulation wherever possible 4. a pump in the effluent filter well where gravity reticulation is not possible 5. watertight Septic Tank Effluent Pump (STEP) reticulation where necessary 6. watertight medium-density polyethylene pipes from the house to the treatment plant 7. small diameter pipes (25 to 32 mm) from the septic tank to the mains 8. small diameter low pressure mains (40 to 76 mm) 9. sand filters, textile filters or other aerated trickle filter treatment systems 10. effluent quality <10 mg/L BOD, <10mg/L TSS (but in many cases <1/1) recycled to

a variety of applications – woodlots, gardens, sporting fields, pasture, toilet flushing 11. UV disinfection (optional – dependent upon reuse application)

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12. additional chlorine dosing when treated effluent is recycled for toilet flushing 13. telemetry on the septic tanks, filters, pumps and pipes to monitor flow rates, water

pressure, water levels, valves and electrical devices 14. centralised management, monitoring and servicing of all components including the

septic tank by sanitation professionals 15. homeowner education program promoting water conservation and awareness of

products that are beneficial and detrimental to septic tanks. A further variation on the model is centralised management of on-site treatment systems where a sanitation utility or company, services all the individual household on-site systems in a given area, sub-division, village or town. In this instance there is no reticulation or community treatment plant. Treatment happens on-site. Management & Telemetry Innoflow Telemetry Control Box on house wall Photo: S.West The key to the effective, efficient and professional management of both scenarios is remote monitoring ie telemetry installed on all equipment, including the septic tank, to measure flow rates and all electrical and mechanical components. The telemetry picks up the first sign of a problem enabling it to be fixed immediately when the impact is negligible. This alone is a very valuable feature, alleviating the very serious environmental and public health impacts caused by the long delay time between onsite failure, visual or olfactory sign of failure and the fault being fixed. The longer the problem persists, the higher the cost to remedy the fault and repair the environmental degradation, and the higher the risk of disease to the householders and neighbours. The benefit of telemetric alarms, in preference to audible - visual alarms, is that the response to a problem is entirely in the hands of an accountable professional and not dependent on the availability of the householder or neighbour to be at home, to be aware of the alarm and respond to it in a timely manner. The service professional can adjust the controls from a distant location, restoring service or containing the problem with minimal disturbance to the householders. Telemetry is connected to the household telephone line. In the USA accumulated data is sent down the phone line at 3 am each morning. In New Zealand this occurs once a month. However, if a problem does occur, the service professional is paged immediately and informed of the problem. Management and Community Education An ongoing aspect of management is homeowner education. This incorporates both ‘demand’ management (water conservation) and information on the most septic-tank- friendly household cleaners, and what not to flush down the sink or toilet. If the micro-organisms in the tank are disturbed or killed by toxic liquids or solids, this is relatively quickly detected by the telemetry when the effluent filter becomes clogged. The service person then informs the householder and an investigation is undertaken to determine the cause of the problem. The results of the investigation act as an educational feedback

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mechanism to the householder and in turn informs and educates the whole community. In some new sub-developments water conserving devices are installed in all homes. The less wastewater created, the less there is to treat, but more importantly the less there is to have to reuse. This can be a major issue in areas with heavy clay soils and high rainfall, as larger land areas and more innovative methods are needed to utilise the water. It is easier and cheaper not to create the ‘wastewater’ in the first place. Watertight Collection Septic Tank Effluent Pump (STEP) unit Diagram: Orenco Systems Best practice in on-site collection for a cost effective decentralised sewerage system is a watertight septic tank (called an interceptor tank) with an effluent filter or an aerobic wet composting tank. The advantage of retaining solids in these on-site tanks is that the treatment plant does not have to deal with them, and therefore will operate more efficiently and have a longer life. The septic interceptor tanks in the decentralised systems in the USA and New Zealand are larger than the typical septic tanks in Australia. Most homes in Australia have a 3,000 litre septic tank, whereas overseas 6,000 litre tanks (4.5KL capacity and 1.5KL emergency storage) are used in this model. These large single chambered tanks (no baffles) are designed to have a long flow path and so are rectangular or oval in horizontal cross-section. They are typically made of concrete or fibreglass. Polyethylene tanks are also used, but can have a high failure rate if the tank walls have inadequate strength. An inlet tee (a pipe in the shape of a ‘T’ on it’s side) and the effluent filter/vault take the place of inlet and outlet baffles. A most important addition to these septic interceptor tanks is an effluent filter that retains between 50% and 90% more of the solids in the tanks. Consequently, the outlet pipes are one third to one quarter the size of pipes attached to tanks that do not have effluent filters. With this larger sized tank, a high quality

effluent filter typically requires cleaning only once every 5 to 8 years, and with householder care of influent quality, the desludging interval is only once every 10 to 15 years. At the moment the sludge would have to continue to be trucked to a conventional sewerage treatment plant (STP) for treatment, but an alternative scenario is to have a specialised plant to convert septic tank sludge to ‘bio-solids’ for reuse.

Septic Tank Effluent Gravity (STEG) unit Diagram: Orenco Systems Just like the septic interceptor tank, the aerobic wet composting tank takes all household wastewater. A wet composting tank contains a range of layered passive filters. The solids accumulate on the layers and the water flows through to a shallow collection well in the base. The solids are consumed by a large range of micro and macroscopic organisms, particularly

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worms. No electricity is used in a ‘single pass’ wet composting tank. However, recirculating units do use electricity. The wet composting interceptor tank has a number of advantages over the septic tank: Septic Tank lids flush with the ground Photo: Orenco Systems

1. no foul odours are generated in a well-maintained aerobic system

2. less sludge (sewage compost) is produced

3. sludge (sewage compost) that is extracted needs no further treatment, except to be buried in the ground for three months before being used in the garden as a soil conditioner.

However, septic interceptor tanks may be smaller in size, take up less space and are usually cheaper to install. In unsewered towns, some

of the existing septic tanks may be in good operating order and may not need to be replaced, for the houses to be incorporated into a community scheme. Effluent filters can be retrofitted into existing septic tanks. However, experience in the US and New Zealand shows that most existing septic tanks are generally in poor condition, especially older ones, and do need replacing. The US and New Zealand septic interceptor tanks are completely buried under the ground except for a 600mm diameter access riser. The green fibreglass lid on the riser is watertight and installed flush with the grass, so that a lawn mover can go over the top of it. Air vents on the septic tanks have carbon filters. These ‘best practice’ septic tanks therefore, have high visual amenity (a small green watertight lid) and no odours. In situations where it is not possible to install a septic tank on each house block, but where it has been decided to install a community sand or textile filter treatment system, a vortex pump can be installed on each lot and sewage reticulated to a community sized septic tank with a large effluent filter. It is important to use a vortex pump so that the sewage is not macerated, because the sludge and scum must separate in the community septic tank and this will not happen very effectively if a grinder pump is used. The disadvantages of using vortex pumps are the higher cost of the pumps compared to a septic tank; higher energy usage; higher cost of using larger pipes because raw sewage is being transported; higher risks of environmental damage if a pipe is ruptured because raw sewage will be discharged; and most importantly as there is little reserve volume in the pump chamber, maintenance personnel must be on-call and available to fix equipment failures, including power failures, within hours of the problem occurring. With an emergency storage capacity of 1500L, best practice septic tanks provide a lower level of risk in the event of equipment or power failure. If grinder pumps are chosen as the collection unit for a decentralised sewerage system, traditional treatment technologies such as activated sludge plants, facultative ponds and membrane bio-reactors are normally installed. Sand or textile filters can, however, serve as the treatment plant to a grinder pump collection scheme, provided 3 large community scale influent tanks (the final one with an effluent filter) are installed at the STP. Sand and textile

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filters can also service a watertight gravity sewer but 2 community scale influent tanks (the second one with an effluent filter) must be installed at the STP. Like the vortex pump, the grinder pump tends to: 1. be more expensive to install than a septic tank; 2. use more electricity than a septic tank effluent pump; 3. have a smaller reserve capacity in the pump chamber (200-600L) compared to 1000-

1500L in a septic tank, which may necessitate maintenance personnel being available to fix equipment and electricity failures within hours, day or night;

4. require larger pipes because the pipes are transporting raw sewage and thus 5. require large pumping stations. Watertight Reticulation The watertight nature of the whole system, from the house to the treatment plant, is a crucial element of the sustainability of this system. Reticulation from the septic tanks to the mains is designed to flow by gravity wherever possible. Otherwise, where a septic tank is below the gradient of the mains, a positive displacement submersible turbine pump is installed with the effluent filter in the septic tank to transport the effluent up to the mains. By eliminating stormwater and groundwater infiltration from the septic tank and reticulation, pipes can be reduced in size to accommodate only the base flow from the house. (Conventional gravity pipes are designed to take up to six times the base flow to accommodate the influx of stormwater and groundwater.) In many conventional treatment plants, sewage is designed to bypass the treatment plant in wet weather and is discharged to waterways without any treatment. This never happens in this best practice model of decentralised sewerage because there is no excess water in the system. If a fault does occur which results in stormwater or groundwater infiltration, it is readily detected by the telemetry and then remedied. To achieve watertightness, the medium-density polyethylene pipes are constructed with heat-welded joints. Particular care is taken to ensure that the pipes from the house to the septic tank are watertight. Having small diameter watertight pipes eliminates the need for sewer overflow valves and manholes. Instead small inspection ports are placed at strategic intervals. Because the mains reticulation is small (40-76 mm) diameter, under low pressure and localised to the precincts of a township, the pipes are less likely to be located in the creek or drainage lines. Therefore, there is less environmental impact than conventional centralised gravity sewers that are laid along river banks with the associated environmental impact from installing large diameter pipes and sewer overflow vaults and especially if they collapse, rupture or overflow and raw sewage is discharged into the waterway. This cannot happen with the best practice model of decentralised / small scale sewerage. A further advantage of a STEG system is that peak flows are ameliorated by the narrow apertures that the effluent must flow through at the septic tank outlet. In STEP systems peak flows are eliminated. This feature eliminates the usual morning and evening hydraulic peaks at the treatment plant.

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Treatment Innoflow Sand Filter, Waimauku, NZ Photo: S.West The treatment plants in this best practice model of decentralised sewerage aim to have an effluent quality of <10 mg/L of BOD and <10 mg/L of TSS or better, and therefore, can use Ultra-Violet (UV) disinfection where required. In Tennessee, the Orenco sand filters (www.orenco.com) installed for the township of Pegram (300 EP) by Onsite Systems has an effluent quality of between 3 & 7 mg/L. Orenco sand filters installed and managed by Innoflow Technologies in New Zealand (www.innoflow.co.nz) at over twenty sub-divisions have an effluent quality of <5 mg/L of BOD & TSS. The high quality is achieved and maintained by having a low dosing rate in the treatment unit. The media (sand, gravel, textile etc) is finely spray dosed at intervals which maintains the aerobic character of the treatment unit. Orenco sand filters do not need to be back washed because their aerobic design does not encourage a bio-film mat to grow. Dr George Tchobanoglous (University of California, Davis) has commended the Orenco treatment systems as being currently the world’s best practice in community scale sewage treatment systems. Dr Tchobanoglous is a world renowned expert in large, medium and small scale sewerage systems and is the co-author of the Metcalf and Eddy text “Wastewater Engineering, Treatment and Reuse” and “Small and Decentralised Wastewater Management Systems” (1998, McGraw Hill). Reflection TS Sand Filter on Weiheke Is, NZ Photo: S.West

Another New Zealand company, Reflection Treatment Systems, is also designing, installing and managing community scale STED schemes using sand filters as the treatment plant. ‘Reflections’ has recently joined forces with an on-site sewerage manufacturer in NSW, Garden Master of Wyong, to install sand filters for households and cluster systems in Australia (www.reflectionsystems.com.au). Any other treatment technologies that can achieve an effluent quality of <10mg/L BOD & <10mg/L TSS, have a low ‘life

cycle’ cost and small ‘ecological footprint’ are also applicable to this best practice model of decentralised sewerage.

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Disinfection Onsite wastewater treatment systems in NSW are designed to meet the required Department of Health’s effluent standard of 20 mg/L of BOD, 30 mg/L of TSS and 30 cfu/100mL of Faecal coliforms for surface and sub-surface irrigation. Unfortunately at this level of suspended solids the effluent is not clear enough for UV to be an effective disinfection method, so chlorine must be used. Chlorine is a toxic substance and poses human health risks if improperly handled, and the residual in the effluent poses a risk to the beneficial microbes in the soil. A more soil-friendly option is to use UV light or heat to disable or kill the pathogens in sewage effluent. Hence, an additional benefit of this best practice small scale sewerage model is that it effectively utilises UV disinfection methods (where applicable), and thereby protects healthy soil ecosystems. Effluent reuse The most challenging feature (and the most sustainable feature where properly managed) of this decentralised sewerage model is what to do with the effluent. This of course, should be the starting point of the design process – determine the end purpose and what effluent quality is required for that purpose, and then work backwards and design the system ie “form follows function”. Many locations are constrained by topography, soils, geology, climate, precipitation, groundwater, waterway protection, landuse and available area, so innovative thinking is often called for to efficiently reuse the effluent. This may be in the form of dual reticulation to the house to supply treated effluent for toilet flushing and garden watering or to the local parks and sporting fields. Special evapo-transpiration beds with water loving plants can be installed to add amenity to the township. Woodlots, pasture, golf courses and orchards can also utilise the effluent. In South Australia vegetables are grown with the treated effluent and supplied to the Adelaide markets and grocery stores. In the US artificial snow has been made with effluent and has also been used to recharge wetlands and aquifers. Industrial and mining applications are highly recommended because the effluent demand is continuous year round, whereas it is seasonal when growing plants. The value of the effluent is multiplied when a community money making venture and job opportunities can be created to utilise the effluent – the commitment to the scheme and the production of high quality effluent is then very high and fosters civic pride. Installation Costs The systems are cheaper to install than conventional centralised gravity sewers and treatment plants. In Mobile, Alabama (USA) it has cost the public water and sewer authority one third to one half the cost (approx. US$5,000 per lot) of conventional sewerage (US$10,000 - $15,000) to service four new sub-divisions with a STED system, including in-ground effluent disposal and in one case, irrigation reuse. Two systems service new residential sub-divisions of about 100 homes each, using Orenco sand filters (build out of one system will service over 1000 homes). Two additional systems are servicing schools (and some homes) and use Orenco textile filters (AdvanTex), for sewage treatment. Dr Kevin White of the University of South Alabama (kwhite@usouthal.edu) helped design the decentralised sewerage systems with Volkert & Associates Engineering (www.volkert.com), under contract to the water and sewer authority. The Mobile Area Water and Sewer System (MAWSS), in association with Dr. White at the University of South Alabama, is now involved in a sewer mining demonstration project in Mobile to address infrastructure capacity, watershed protection, and reuse, all using decentralised concepts integrated within a traditional centralised wastewater system. Several treatment technologies are being evaluated as part of this USEPA funded demonstration project.

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In New Zealand Innoflow has installed community schemes (MEDS) using watertight concrete septic interceptor tanks, Orenco effluent filters, watertight medium-density polyethylene reticulation, Orenco sand filters, telemetry, UV disinfection and Netafim sub-surface drip-line irrigation pipes for from NZ$6,000 to $10,500 per lot. Operating Costs Because these centrally managed septic tank effluent drainage and treatment schemes are cheaper to build and operate, customers pay a service fee similar to a conventional sewerage service, but at a reduced rate. For example, in the USA customers pay between US$30 and $35 per month when connected to a conventional gravity sewer service, but when connected to a decentralised STED service, customers may pay between US$20 and $30 per month. In New Zealand the MEDS operating costs are the same ie NZ$20 to $30 per month per household. This fee covers all management, monitoring, servicing, repairs, spare parts and periodic pumpouts. It is in the financial and regulatory interests of the utility or service provider to ensure that all repairs are done as soon as possible. This takes a huge burden of responsibility away from the householders and dispels the fear of large repair bills which are normally avoided by procrastination or resorting to illegally discharging septic tank effluent to the gutter or stormwater drains. There is no socio-economic ceiling or niche for the utilisation of this decentralised sewerage model. Many expensive homes and sub-divisions are now serviced by the STEDS / MEDS model as part of Smart Growth Planning.

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Ripple Effects Since returning to Australia two years ago I have given 105 powerpoint presentations and written several papers (see Appendix A, B & C) on the innovative on-site and decentralised sewage treatment, management and reuse systems that I found in Europe and the USA in 2000 and subsequently found in New Zealand in 2001. The audiences for the presentations has been mainly Sydney Water staff, but also the Australian Water Association (AWA), the on-site wastewater industry, council officers and state government staff in Sydney, Newcastle, Nowra, Armidale, Lismore, Wollongong, Blue Mountains, Brisbane, Adelaide, Mt Gambier and Canberra in Australia and Auckland in New Zealand (NZWWA), and a small number to the community. The information has been extremely well received in most cases, with people immediately grasping the potential of the paradigm shift of watertight community scale sewerage service delivery with the accompanying benefits of:

no infiltration of stormwater into the pipes no exfiltration of sewage out of the pipes, pipes one-sixth the size of conventional pipes because they do not have to

accommodate stormwater no sewer overflow valves and so no sewer overflows to waterways, no pumping stations, no ocean or river outfalls for these systems, no sewage bypassing the treatment plant in wet weather, all sewage captured and treated, rehabilitation of river and estuary aquatic ecosystems including shellfish and fishing

industries (especially where combined with stormwater infiltration systems and stock fenced out of the riparian zones),

no pipes in the creeklines, no long pipes traversing the countryside, small diameter pipes that carry primary treated effluent not raw sewage, therefore

there is less detrimental impact if a pipe is accidentally broken, flexible pipes that go around boulders, structures, trees and cultural sites, small diameter pipes are relatively quick and cheap to install, as is the subsequent

land restoration, providing a range of local effluent reuse opportunities, even ones that can return

money to the community, excellent potential for integrated water management, no chemicals used, no by-products sent to landfill, resource recovery, closing the nutrient cycle, closing the water cycle, water conservation, reduced energy consumption and reduced greenhouse gas emissions

leading to the enhancement of our society on many levels – environmental, social and economic. The ripple effect of sharing my findings has been very gratifying. Sydney Water has undertaken a number of studies on small unsewered rural villages to determine the feasibility of installing and managing decentralised sewerage systems based on the Tennessee model

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and subsequently found in South Australia (SA). Although a suitable town has not yet been identified, senior managers have acknowledged the potential benefits of cost savings and reuse opportunities. Because South Australia has been installing Septic Tank Effluent Drainage Systems (STEDS) – the precursor of the Tennessee model – since 1970, SA Water and local councils in SA readily appreciated the advantages of the upgraded features of the US model and are in the process of incorporating these added features ie effluent filters in septic tanks, watertight pipes and cost effective advanced treatment systems. Many Australian on-site sewerage designers, manufacturers and installers who previously only worked with septic tanks, aerated wastewater treatment systems (AWTS) and infiltration trenches are now actively exploring their opportunities to expand into other onsite treatment technologies, nutrient reduction processes and decentralised sewerage provision and servicing. Many on-site companies are also collaborating with each other or with engineering firms or university specialists to create a niche in the emerging market. Peter Davey, former CEO of the Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment Management Trust, and now a Research Fellow at the University of Western Sydney – Hawkesbury (UWS-H), upon hearing about the international decentralised sewerage systems in April 2001 immediately had the idea of establishing a Small Scale Wastewater Demonstration, Education and Research Centre at UWS-H. The aim is to have a facility to house the range of technologies suitable for individual and clusters of homes which will:

showcase current and emerging collection, treatment and reuse technologies to the community, water industry and regulatory stakeholders

monitor technical performance and influent and effluent quality under various conditions

provide educational support and hands-on experience for technical training, community outreach and university education

provide research facilities and collaboration opportunities for state, interstate and international students and specialists, with the support of community, government and industry stakeholder.

The Centre will have some features of the On-site Training Centres in the USA, but with the addition of being integrated with the Richmond Reuse Project as part of the Future Water Precinct at UWS-H. Support is now being sort from key government agencies and industry groups (for more information contact Peter Davey at p.davey@uws.edu.au ). I envision that in the near future there will be many new career and job opportunities liaising and working with communities, and designing, manufacturing, installing, servicing and managing these community scale sewage treatment and reuse schemes, and eventually local integrated water, stormwater and sewerage systems. Affordable, appropriate*, community enhancing and ecologically sustainable sanitation service is now attainable in Australia and New Zealand with advanced decentralised sewerage management, treatment and reuse systems using the STEDS best practice model. * when you need a sailing boat there is no need to build a Q E II.

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Countries and Organisations Visited, in Chronological Order

SCOTLAND Percentage of households on onsite systems – 7 % (~ 350,000 people) Highlights: The Living Machine at Findhorn; and Living Water wetlands where Jane Shields plants 75 endemic species and lets ‘natural selection’ take its course 1. Robert Gordon University Anthony Craig School of Architecture Robert Gordon University Garthdee Rd, Aberdeen AB1 07 QB, Scotland Ph: 44 (0)1224 263542 Fax: 44 (0)1224 263737 a.craig@rgu.ac.uk www.rgu.ac.uk Areas of research are community perception of on-site sewerage systems and integrated stormwater and sewerage. Tony is currently working on a variety of projects looking at sustainability in housing, and is searching for funding for a project on the psychological issues related to decentralized wastewater systems. Publications: Burkhard, R. & Craig, A. (2000) ‘Ecological Water and Wastewater Management for New Housing: Technical, Economic and Social Considerations’. Burkhard, R., Deletic, A. & Craig, A. (2000) 'Techniques for water and wastewater management: a review of techniques and their integration in planning', Urban Water, 2 (3), 197-221. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6VR2-42BTKW7-4-3C&_cdi=6222&_orig=browse&_coverDate=09/30/2000&_sk=999979996&wchp=dGLSzS-lSzBS&_acct=C000011479&_version=1&_userid=138221&md5=63ce277dbae777642cb4a757115437fb&ie=f.pdf Craig, A. (2002) ‘Overcoming Expertocracy through sustainable development: the case of wastewater’, in: G. Moser, E. Pol, Y. Bernard, M. Bonnes, J. Corraliza & V. Giuliani (eds.) People, Places and Sustainability. Göttingen, Germany: Hogrefe & Huber. http://www.rgu.ac.uk/files/Craig2000.pdf

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2. University of Abertay Prof. Richard Ashley moved to → Prof. Richard Ashley & Dr Kirsteen MacDonald Pennine Water Group Wastewater Technology Centre Bradford University University of Abertay School of Eng., Design & Technology Dundee DD1 1HG, Scotland West Yorkshire BD7 1DP, England Ph: +44 (0)1382 308170 Ph: +44 (0) 1274 233865 Fax: +44 (0)1382 308117 Fax: +44 (0) 1274 233888 www.abertay.ac.uk r.ashley@bradford.ac.uk www.sewnet.org Wastewater Technology Centre - University of Abertay Development of a multi-criteria analysis tool to assess relative sustainability of water and wasterwater systems. The Pennine Water Group CSO Screen Test Rig, Leeds STP Photo: R.Ashley Government centre funded between Bradford and Sheffield Universities. Projects:

Modelling and adapting drainage systems to climate change (known as AUDACIOUS)

Modelling sustainable water and sanitation - Water and New Developments (WaND)

2002 International Conference on Sewer Operation and Maintenance

Dr Kirsteen MacDonald now works at Ewan Associates Ltd 12 Beta Centre Stirling University Innovation Park Stirling FK9 4NF, Scotland KMacdonald@ewanscotland.co.uk www.ewan.co.uk Kirsteen MacDonald’s Ph.D thesis: “The effectiveness of certain sustainable urban drainage systems in preventing flooding and pollution from runoff in Scotland”. Kirsteen examined two swales and a porous paved car park, along with the alternatives on site i.e. road runoff at the swale sites and a tarmac car park along side the porous car park site. The aim of the research was to determine the effectiveness of porous surfaces. The results were very positive, showing that both types of pervious systems attenuate and reduce flow and improve water quality. The swales and porous pavement were equally effective. Ewan Associates is a specialist firm offering a range of water and environmental consultancy services, including wastewater modelling, data management and the design of reed beds, to water, utility and public sector clients.

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3. Living Water (wastewater consultancy) Culloden Tourist Centre, Scotland Photo: Living Water Jane and David Shelds Living Water 5 Holyrood Rd, Edinburgh EH8 8AE, Scotland Ph: +44 (0)1315 583313 Fax: +44 (0)1315 581550 hello@livingwater.org.uk www.livingwater.org.uk Living Water founded in 1989 by Jane and David Shields, is a pioneering and innovative partnership applying ecological principles to solve a range of water and waste problems from households, communities, developments, landfill, agriculture, vineyards and industry. Their approach begins with water and waste minimisation, followed by resource management and recycling. Treatment systems that recreate pond, wetland, soil and woodland ecology are selected and designed to meet the unique requirements of each project. Living Water has developed techniques to treat effluent and wastes with a high organic loading (e.g. distilleries, vineyards, farms, cosmetic industry) and those with a high hydrocarbon content (e.g. oil industry, road gully tankers, contaminated soil and sludges). The aim of their work is to transform contaminated water and waste into usable resources using a combination of natural processes. Any material that cannot be reused or recycled is incorporated into the food web where it can enhance biodiversity. Living Water’s areas of expertise are: 1. Ecological Water and Waste Treatment 2. Bioremediation of Contaminated Soils and Sludges 3. Surface Water Management and Treatment 4. Capture of Roof Water and Recycling 5. Integrated Strategies, Watershed and Catchment Management 6. Treatment of Vineyard Effluent and Waste 7. Surface Water Management and Treatment of Run-off from Vineyards 8. Development of New Applications for ‘Rhizoid Regeneration Technique’ for use in

Monitoring Pesticides and Herbicides in Vineyard

9. Biodiversity Enhancement and Functional Landscaping.

Ecological Water and Waste Treatment In designing a system Living Water works with the basic principle that ‘in nature there is no waste because one organism’s waste is another’s food’. Inherent within this are concepts of nutrient balancing, carrying capacity, completing and linking cycles and the food web. They distinguish between a biological treatment system (using bacteria), which creates a sludge (not consumed nutrient), and an ecological system that utilises a much wider range of flora and fauna (bacteria, microorganisms, invertebrates, fungi and plants) that consume nutrients and thus minimise sludge production. By provision of the correct balance and mixture of flora and fauna it is possible to support those creatures higher up the food chain, (i.e. fish, birds, amphibians and mammals). The more complex the food web, the greater the

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efficiency, effectiveness and flexibility of the treatment system. Each system is a unique design according to the particular characteristics of the pollutants (liquid or solid) and the context in which it is produced or discharged. Steps include: • Environmental audit • Management of the process to reduce the volume or toxicity of all end products • Management of water (process water, roof water, surface water). • Assessment of the chemical composition of the effluent or waste product and the strength

of the waste product • Volume, flow rates, discharge rates, other relevant information on timing or dynamics of

feeds and waste products • Determination of potential resources that can be created using the waste products • Site assessment (level survey, climatic factors, available area, location in context with the

wider community and landscape) • Design process includes the choice of the type(s) of biological and ecological systems

required for the treatment and transformation of the effluent and waste into a resource and sizing the treatment system appropriately.

• Detailed drawings and specifications are drawn up • Liaison with project team, official bodies, • Project management (can act as main contractor) • Site Management • Health & Safety • Supervision and commissioning of the construction process • Maintenance and Aftercare • Landscaping and Habitat Creation A complete service from integrated management and design through to implementation and landscaping are offered. An environmental audit and up front management steps are required because it is a necessary part of the design solution. Wherever possible discharge is via land and trees (functional landscaping) instead of a water so that its discharge is to an appropriate ecological system. The implementation of water and waste minimisation measures has given industrial clients a commercial payback on treatment systems of between one to two years. Wetlands and Reedbeds Wetland treating MgO from Electro Furnace Products, Hull

Photo: Living Water Projects - UK, Czech Republic and Fiji. Complex reed beds treat the wastewater from:

salt laden road runoff sewage manufacturing industries food industries cosmetics and body care products

(ie The Body Shop) pulp and paper mills.

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The consultancy has a policy of zero discharge to waterways. Reedbeds at sewage and manufacturing sites in Scotland are initially planted with 75 endemic species and then left to the process of ‘natural selection’. Road runoff reedbeds are planted with salt march species. Any excess water from the reedbeds is diverted to plantation woodlots where timber is grown and coppiced for firewood or craft wood. Their largest reedbed for sewage treatment is for the township of Rothienorman (760 EP), near Aberdeen, with smaller ones on the Isle of Lewis and near Perth.

4. Watershed Systems Ltd → Ameco Ltd Ameco Floating Reed Raft Photo: A.Marland Angus Marland now at Ameco Ltd 245 Pineridge, The Park, Findhorn Forres, Morayshire IV36 3TB, Scotland Ph/Fax: +44 (0) 1309 691846 ameco@findhorn.org www.ameco.findhorn.com The Living Machine, Wetlands Previously a designer and installer of The Living Machine, Angus now uses a range of wetland and reedbed designs. Of interest was a floating raft system planted out with reeds to clean water. The roots of the reeds elongate down into the water providing increased area for bio-film growth. The floating rafts may have a ‘stirrer’ below the raft to move more water and oxygen past the roots. The ‘stirrer’ may be mains powered or solar powered. Watershed Systems Ltd also sold a microbiological product ‘Bacta-Pur’ used to inoculate polluted water with beneficial bacteria to quicken the rate of purification. Angus is now working from Findhorn designing ecological sewerage treatment systems, and is currently upgrading the Findhorn Living Machine to take higher flows and loads. 5. Living Technologies, Ltd The Living Machine, Findhorn Park Photo: C.Hensch Alex & Pauline Walker The Park, Findhorn Forres, Morayshire IV36 3TZ, Scotland Ph: +44 (0)1309 691258 Fax: +44 (0)1309 691258 awalker@findhorn.org www.findhorn.org www.ltluk.com The Living Machine A Living Machine is a wastewater treatment system based on the same principles as a natural wetland, but providing maximum bio-diversity within a controlled environment. It mimics and accelerates wetland processes and uses considerably less land. A Living Machine is a series of mini-wetlands in 4 metre deep tanks (half below ground level). In the northern

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hemisphere these are housed in greenhouses to enable the plants to continue to grow through the winter months. A greenhouse is not necessary in tropical or temperate climates. A complex ecosystem consisting of aquatic herbaceous plants, trees, snails, fish, algae and other microorganisms is the key to the robust nature of the treatment system enabling a Living Machine to withstand a wide variation in load and toxicity. The capital cost of the fully commissioned Findhorn Living Machine was £140,000 in 1996. Operating costs, principally electricity and labour, is £22,400 per year. The Findhorn Living Machine has been designed for a maximum capacity of 65 m³ per day. At present approximately 200 residents plus a fluctuating number of guests produce 50 m³. The system has twin treatment trains to facilitate maintenance. The components of the Findhorn Living Machine are: 1. gravity sewerage system; 2. three community scale septic tanks; 3. two closed aerobic tanks (to contain and

vent odours); 4. eight open aerobic tanks (mini-wetlands); 5. two clarifiers (sludge is returned to the primary anaerobic tanks); Photo: S.West 6. six ‘Ecological Fluidised Beds’ (alternating nitrification and denitrification processes in

highly aerated filter tanks filled with furnace slag); 7. a small decorative fish pond forms the final component within the greenhouse before the

effluent is discharged to the adjacent sand dunes. A typical analysis of influent and effluent quality at Findhorn is: BOD: 250 mg/L ⇑ <10 mg/L TSS: 160 mg/L ⇑ <10 mg/L TKN: 40 mg/L ⇑ <10 mg/L NH4: 50 mg/L ⇑ <2 mg/L NO3 0 mg/L ⇑ <5 mg/L TP 7 mg/L ⇑ <5 mg/L Living MachineSummer Growth Photo: S.West

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ENGLAND Percentage of households on onsite systems – 3.5 % (~ 1,650,000 people) Highlights: Submerged Aerated Filters at Severn Trent Water, Coventry; the Aquatron at Folly Foot Farm, near Bath 6. Newcastle University Dr Tom Curtis Dept of Civil Engineering & Geosciences Newcastle University Newcastle-upon-Tyne, NE17RU England Ph: +44 (0) 191 222 6690 Fax: +44 (0) 191 222 6669 Tom.Curtis@newcastle.ac.uk www.newcastle.ac.uk Ecology of aquatic community assemblages. Microbiological research work on Cryptosporidium and algae, and the ecology of aquatic community assemblages. Publications: Curtis, T.P. (1991) Mechanisms of removal of faecal coliforms from waste stabilisation ponds. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Leeds, UK. Curtis, T.P., Mara, D.D. and Silva, S.A. (1992) ‘Influence of pH, oxygen and humic substances on ability of sunlight to damage faecal coliforms in waste stabilisation pond water.’ Applied and Environmental Microbiology 58, pp 1335-1343. Curtis, T.P. (1996) ‘The fate of Vibrio cholerae in wastewater treatment plants.’ In: B. Draser and B.D. Forrest (eds) Ecology and the Ecology of Vibrio Cholerae. Chapman and Hall, London. Curtis, T.P (2003) ‘Bacterial pathogen removal in wastewater treatment plants’. Chapter 30 in The Handbook of Water and Wastewater Microbiology. Elsevier Science Ltd. ISBN 0 12 4701000 Waste Stabilisation Pond, Esholt, Bradford Photo: K.Abis 7. University of Leeds Dr Karen Abis & Dr Duncan Mara University of Leeds Leeds LS29JT, England Ph: +44 (0) 113 233 2315 Fax: +44 (0) 113 343 2243 k.abis@leeds.ac.uk d.d.mara@leeds.ac.uk www.leeds.ac.uk

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Facultative ponds / Waste Stabilisation Ponds Waste Stabilisation Ponds (WSP) are a well accepted primary and secondary sewage treatment technology overseas especially in countries with tropical climates, but there is a presumption that they will not work in England’s colder climate. They are mainly used in the UK for tertiary polishing. Karen constructed three 50 m³ WSPs at the main Bradford sewage treatment plant to research how they function. The ponds were not planted with reeds. Apart from microbiological processes, the primary active agent was algae. 8. Hockerton Housing Project Hockerton Housing Project Photo: S.West Nick White Builder, Resident and Director Hockerton Housing Project The Watershed, Gables Drive, Hockerton, Southwell, Nottinghamshire NG25 0Q, England Ph: +44 (0)1636 81902 hhp@hockerton.demon.co.uk www.hockerton.demon.co.uk Integrated water cycle, eco-housing An innovative 5 terrace house construction based on the ‘Earthship’ design, on 10 Ha of land. The housing project is self-sufficient in energy, water and wastewater treatment. The sewage treatment train is:

1. a community septic tank with 10 days retention time 2. a floating reedbed ie a wetland pond with floating rafts supporting the reeds 3. a limestone gabion wall through which treated effluent from the first pond passes to a second wetland 4. open water wetland / lake. Hockerton HP W/W Treatment Lagoons Photo: S.West

Over the years the project has established itself as an exemplar of sustainable development. As a result, a small on site business has been established offering a range of services including guided tours of the development, a consultancy in eco-design, workshops and the publication of a series of guides on sustainable living.

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9. The Earth Centre The Earth Centre Living Machine Photo: S.West Bernd Hoermann The Earth Centre Doncaster Rd, Denaby Main, Doncaster South Yorkshire DN12 4EA, England Ph: 44 (0)1709 512000 Fax: 44 (0)1709 512010 bhoermann@tesco.net www.earthcentre.org.uk The Living Machine The Earth Centre is a £40 million interactive environmental education and conference centre built as one of the many ‘Millennium’ projects. It is the brain child of Jonathon Smails – a former Greenpeace Director. A vacuum toilet system has been built for sewage collection and a Living Machine for sewage treatment. This Living Machine was designed and built by the US parent company Living Technologies. The Living Machine is a series of wetlands in vats. In this case the vats are rectangular and concrete, whereas in most other places in the world the vats are made of plastic. Sewage treatment is accomplished by a complex aquatic ecosystem - a community

of aquatic plants, animals, bacteria and fungi. The aquatic plants (mainly tropical) float on rafts, which stimulates their roots to elongate, providing ample area for bio-film to grow. Being a day centre the flow primarily consists of urine. In 2000 there was insufficient nutrients in the sewerage for the plants to survive, so Bernd added manure to the tanks to retain a healthy plant community. By 2002, in excess of 140,000 people are visiting the Centre per year, negating the need to add manure.

The Living Machine vats Photo: S.West Three external aerobic tanks and a soil and compost filter are used to remove odours prior to the sewage entering the building containing the Living Machine. This is important, as the Living Machine is a public display and one of the main educational attractions of the Earth Centre. The two-storey building that houses the Living Machine cost £1 million and has three layers of clear teflon on two sides of the upper level to allow sufficient light to reach the plants inside the building.

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10. Environ The EcoHouse, Leicester Website Photo Ben Dodd Communications Manager Environ Parkfield, Western Park Leicester LE3 6HX, England Ph: +44 (0) 116 222 0222 Fax: +44 (0) 116 255 2343 bdodd@environ.org.uk www.environ.org.uk The Ecohouse – a sustainable house Environ is a large NGO that educates and campaigns on issues of waste reduction, water conservation and energy conservation. The Ecohouse is a retrofitted 1950’s house set up by Environ as a demonstration house, with insulation, double glazing, low flush toilets, dry composting toilets and water conservation appliances and fixtures. 11. Cranfield University Dr Bruce Jefferson Dr Clare Diaper - now works at: School of Water Sciences CSIRO Urban Water Cranfield University CSIRO - MIT Graham Rd Bedford, MK43 0AL, England Highett VIC 3190 Ph: 44 (0)1234 750111 Ph: +61 3 9252 6440 Fax: 44 (0)1234 71671 Fax: + 61 2 9252 6249 b.jefferson@cranfield.ac.uk clare.diaper@csiro.au www.cranfield.ac.uk www.cmit.csiro.au/research/urbanwater Membrane Bio-Reactors (MBR) Cranfield is a post-graduate only, technological university. Areas of research include urban water recycling (greywater, blackwater & rainwater), advanced biological treatment processes (membrane bio-reactors and biological aerated filters), integrated water management, social research and urban planning modelling. Social research includes the relationship of society to water, public perception of water reuse, aspects of stakeholder engagement and interdisciplinary working groups in the water sector. Research facilities include purpose built testing facilities for sewage and greywater treatment using real wastewater sources. The leading area of research at Cranfield is membrane bioreactors. Details of projects and publications can be found on their website: www.cranfield.ac.uk/sims/water/recycling

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12. Severn Trent Water Lighthorne Health reedbed STP Photo: P.Griffin Paul Griffin (& John Upton) Senior Process Engineer Severn Trent Water Avon House, St Martins Rd Coventry, CV3 6PR, England Ph: 44 (0) 1217 224000 Fax: 44 (0) 2478 244001 paul.griffin@severntrent.co.uk www.severntrent.net Submerged Aerated Filters, Rotating Biological Contactors Severn Trent Water operates nearly 700 small scale sewerage plants many of them for less than 50 people. Rotating Biological Contractors (RBC), Submerged Aerated Filters (SAF) and reedbeds are the main treatment technologies. Reedbeds are primarily used for tertiary polishing and stormwater treatment after the RBCs and SAFs. For small communities of less than 50 EP, septic tanks are retained onsite and community-scale reedbeds provide secondary treatment to meet standards of 25 mg/L BOD and 45 mg/L TSS or greater. A single RBC can treat 450-650 EP (depending on the consent) and up to four in parallel are used to treat up to 2000 EP. Shaft failures were a big problem in the past but this has been resolved and shafts are now expected to last for 20 years. Capital cost is high (£90000 for a 650 EP unit), but operating costs are very low. The search for an improved technology lead to the installation of the SAFs (see section 13). The submerged aerated filters consist of a large enclosed plastic pod filled with randomly placed small plastic corrugated pieces of tube with a large surface area, which become covered with microorganisms. There are no moving mechanical parts except for an external motor which blows air into the pod. SAFs are very effective sewage treatment units. They have a lower capital cost (£54,000) than RBCs, but this is partly offset by higher operating costs. Severn Trent Water uses them up to 250 EP. However, John Upton (now retired) believes that membrane bioreactors will be the best technology of the near future. I visited three small scale plants at Ashorne, Northend and Leek Wootton to view RBCs and SAFs, but there are no photos because it was snowing. 13. WPL Limited Submerged Aerated Filter Diagram: WPL Ltd brochure Mike Bennett, Public Relations Officer Mark Howorth, International Business Mger WPL Limited Units 1 & 2, Aston Rd, Waterlooville Hampshire PO7 7UX, England Ph: +44 (0) 2 392 242600 Fax: +44 (0) 2 392 242624 enquiries@wpl-limited.co.uk www.wpl.ltd.uk

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WPL manufactures a range of wastewater treatment systems that cater for individual households up to communities of 2000 EP. Treatment technologies include conical septic tanks, sand filters and submerged aerated filters (SAF), such as the ones that have been installed for Severn Trent Water to treat the sewage of small villages (see section 12).

Submerged Aerated Filter Photo: WPL Ltd brochure 14. Elemental Solutions (wastewater consultancy) Aquatron on chamber Photo: M.Moodie Mark Moodie Elemental Solutions Oaklands Park, Newnham Gloucestershire GL14 1EF, England Ph: +44 (0)1594 516063 Fax: +44 (0)1594 516821 mark.es@aecb.net www.elementalsolutions.co.uk The Aquatron www.aquatron.se/uk/ A new sewerage system utilising two Aquatrons, two composting tanks and an infiltration trench was being installed by Mark Moodie at Folly Foot Farm and Wildlife Sanctuary near Bath, to cater for the large number of seasonal visitors that visit the farm to access the wildlife sanctuary. The Aquatron is a Swedish invention developed by a retired IBM engineer. Aquatrons cost £450 each to import from Sweden. Aquatron & chamber Aquatron Web Photo The Aquatron is a source separator unit originally designed for blackwater only but now used by Elemental Solutions for full wastewater flows. In the shape of an hourglass, the white plastic unit stands less than one metre high on top of a composting chamber. It has no moving parts and requires no electricity. Because of the hourglass shape of the unit, when sewage flows into the top of the Aquatron the water swirls around the inside surface of the unit by centripetal force and the solids drop down through the middle into the composting chamber below. The water drains off through a pipe at the base of the Aquatron and is joined by any liquid that drains off the solids in the tank. (Water can be trapped in the toilet paper as it falls into the chamber.) In Sweden this combined water is passed through an ultra-violet disinfection unit before it is piped to the greywater collection tank, but this UV unit is not required in the UK.

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At Folly Foot Farm two composting tanks have been set up in parallel so that the solids are left to compost without the addition of fresh material for a further period of time - expected to be up to 5 years in this installation. The two Aquatrons have been placed on top of two concrete tanks. The base of the tanks have a false floor made of plastic lattice work covered with 20 cm of peat substitute and worms. The worms and microflora and fauna compost the solids. The final composted material will be dug out of the tanks and used as fertiliser around the ornamental trees on the property. The liquid from the Aquatron drains off into 3 infiltration trenches. Publications: Grant, N., Moodie, M. & Weedon, C. (2000) Sewage Solutions: answering the call of nature, The Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth, Wales ISBN 1898049165 Nick Grant & Mark Moodie, Septic Tanks Overview, ISBN 0 9526957 1 5 Grant, N. & Morgan, C. (1999) ‘Ecological Wastewater Management; challenging assumptions and developing contextual design solutions’. CIBSE National Conference proceedings, October 1999. Environment Agency (2001) Conserving Water in Buildings, Fact cards. Environment Agency, Worthing. Grant, N. & Halliday, S. (2002) Water and Sewage Management; Sustainable Construction Module No. 3. Gaia Research ISBN 0131 5587227. Grant, N. & Griggs J. (2000) BRE Good Building Guide, GB42 Part 1, ‘Reed beds; application and specification’ ISBN 1 86081 436 0 Part 2, ‘Reed beds; design, construction and maintenance’. CRC Ltd. ISBN 1 86081 437 9. Telephone: 020 7505 6622 WALES Percentage of households on onsite systems – 7 % (~ 200,000 people) 15. The Centre for Alternative Technology Flowform in Geodesic Dome Photo: S.West Peter Harper Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) Machynlleth, Powys, SY20 9AZ, Wales Ph: 44 (0)1654 702400 Fax: 44 (0)1654 702782 peter.harper@cat.org.uk www.cat.org.uk Environmental Education Centre An education and demonstration centre built in an old slate mine. Open to the public for 25 years, the Centre on its 40 acre site, has

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working displays of alternative energy systems (wind, water and solar), composting toilets, flowforms, recycling, low-energy buildings and organic growing. 800,000 people visit the Centre every year. Sanitation features and displays are:

‘Euro-Dowmus’ - an adaptation of the Australian Dowmus system to cool European conditions, using the Dowmus pedestal.

COMPUS TWIN - an advanced double waterless chamber toilet. The acronym stands for COMPact/COMPosting Urine-Separating TWIN-vault toilet. This has been designed by Andy Warren of Natural Solutions (andy@natsol.co.uk) and has many innovative features. It is available for public use.

Also available for the public are low-flush ‘Ifo’ Swedish toilets, using two or four litres per flush. These run into an Aquatron with a composting chamber, in which papermill sludge is used as a bulking agent, carbon source and pH buffer.

Male members of the public also have a selection of five different waterless urinal systems.

Solar Panels & Pond Photo: S.West There are two separate reedbed systems.

♦ One is sized for 30 EP. The treatment train is a settlement tank, vertical flow gravel bed 1, VFGB2, VFGB3, a horizontal flow bed, a pond and ground discharge. The sludge is run from the bottom of the settlement tank and filtered in a special vertical flow bed, with the filtrate running into the main system for further treatment.

♦ The other system is sized for 150 EP. The treatment trains consists of a settlement tank, a vertical flow gravel bed, a variable vertical/horizontal bed, a open channel through willow coppice with discharge to the river.

CAT runs public courses on these and other sanitation systems, and has a consultancy service to advise on the choice of systems, and where required to design them. Sanitation related workshops conducted at CAT in 2002 were: ‘Sewage Solutions - Waterless Toilets’ ‘Green Sanitation and Organic Waste’ ‘Sewage Solutions: Reed Beds’ ‘Water Treatment, Conservation and Recycling’ CAT has a most comprehensive bookshop and book mail-order service. Two relevant publications are: Harper, P. & Halestrap, L. (1999) Lifting the Lid: an ecological approach to toilet systems, CAT, Machynlleth, Wales. ISBN 1898049793 Grant, N., Moodie, M. & Weedon, C. (2000) Sewage Solutions: answering the call of nature, CAT, Machynlleth, Wales. ISBN 1898049165

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THE NETHERLANDS Percentage of households on onsite systems – 3.2 % (~ 600,000 people) Overview of sewerage in the Netherlands: Of the 6.2 million households in the Netherlands 200,000 are not connected to the sewer. 100,000 of these will be connected and the other 100,000 will be upgraded to more efficient individual on-site sewerage systems. There are no plans to cluster any homes together onto a decentralised system because the remaining 100,000 dwellings are widely dispersed non-farming households, petrol stations or in nature reserves. However, there are several interesting water recycling projects at Zoos and Fun Parks. Every household must connect to the sewer when within 40 meters of a main sewerage pipe. The local town government must provide a sewerage system unless it is not cost effective. The maximum cost per household has been set at 7000 euros (approximately AUS$14,000). Therefore, if the estimated cost to provide mains sewerage to a house is above 7000 euros (not including the household connection cost), that house will not be provided with a sewerage pipeline. The 100,000 homes that will not receive a sewage service must organise their own sewage treatment system. The overview of sewerage management in the Netherlands was provided by Dr Annelies Balkema, Dr Adriaan Mels, Sietz Leeflang and René Kilian ( see section 44). 16. Eindhoven University of Technology Dr Annelies Balkema Eindhoven University of Technology E-MBS-C, PO Box 513 5600 MB Eindhoven Ph: +31 (0) 402 472507 Fax: +31 (0) 402 434582 kiboko@wxs.nl www.tue.nl For her Ph.D thesis, Annelies Balkema is designing a decision support tool for sustainable domestic water systems. The tool includes a large number of options for domestic water use and wastewater treatment - 24 decision variables and 13 treatment technologies. The systems are compared using economical, ecological, and social-cultural indicators. One can use the tool to select systems manually or use the optimisation routine to select optimal systems for a given set of data and weight factors. The idea behind the decision support tool is to explore sustainable solutions for the water sector by comparing a large variety of domestic water systems.

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17. Wageningen University UASB-septic tank Photo: A.Mels Dr Adriaan Mels Lettinga Associates Foundation (LeAF) Wageningen University P.O. Box 500, 6700 AM Wageningen The Netherlands Ph: + 31 (0) 317483360 Fax: +31 (0) 317 484802 adriaan.mels@wur.nl http://www.ftns.wau.nl/lettinga-associates/index.htm Dr Mels is employed at the Lettinga Associates Foundation (LeAF), a non-profit, market oriented organisation that actively promotes the implementation of sustainable and robust environmental protection technologies with the aim of (re-) utilising the valuable compounds in waste and wastewater. LeAF is independent, but closely connected to Wageningen University. Within LeAF, Dr Mels is project coordinator of the DESAR (Decentralized Sanitation and Reuse) working group. They are involved with several Dutch and international research and demonstration projects that are based (i) on source separation of domestic wastewater flows or (ii) on decentralised treatment of sewage by anaerobic treatment, followed by post treatment and subsequent reuse of water and nutrients in e.g. agriculture. More information can be found at www.desar.info www.ftns.wau.nl/lettinga-associates/Organisatie/werkgroepen/DESAR.htm 18. Centre for Ecological Technology Paper Leaf Toilet Photo: CET Sietz Leeflang Centre for Ecological Technology (CET) De 12 Ambachten, Mezenlaan 2 5282 HB Boxtel Ph: +31 (0) 411672621 Fax: +31 (0) 411672854 leeflang@antenna.nl www.antenna.nl www.de12ambachten.nl www.watersaving.nl

The Centre for Ecological Technology aims to make ecological sustainable technologies economical and affordable. The Paper Leaf Toilet® has been invented at the Centre for Ecological Technology. It is a compact dry composting system in which solid excreta is made odourless and compacted by applying layers of paper of top. Urine is collected separately and mixed with the household greywater before treatment in a helophyte (marsh plants) filter. Approximately 100 Paper Leaf Toilets have been installed in households in the Netherlands, Belgium and France. Paper Leaf Toilet Website Photo

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A larger scale pilot project is currently being implemented. The contents of the Paper Leaf Toilets will be collected from urban areas and composted with organic kitchen and garden waste at an existing composting plant, ‘Orga-world’. The organic material will be composted at 65º to 70ºC for 3 weeks in a tunnel. It is anticipated that at this temperature all pathogens will be eradicated within 2 weeks. The enriched compost will be used in sustainable agriculture. 19. Van Hall Instituut (Applied Science University) Nebo Treatment Plant Photo: IBA Frans Debets General Manager, Business Centre (IBA) Van Hall Instituut Agora 1, Postbus 1754 8901 CB Leeuwarden The Netherlands Ph: +31 (0)582846160 Fax: +31 (0) 582846199 FL.Debets@pers.vhall.nl www.vhibc.nl www.ibahelpdesk.nl Accreditation The Netherlands has embarked on a program of accreditation of the nationally manufactured onsite treatment systems. However, this accreditation process is optional for the 25 manufacturers in the Netherlands. The Business Centre of the Van Hall Institute at Leeuwarden has been authorised by KIWA (the water related certifying authority) to run the accreditation testing program. Manufacturers install their equipment at the Institute and pay for 6 months of testing. Eight different units are tested concurrently every 6 months. Onsite treatment systems have been divided into six categories:

activate sludge rotating aerated filters (fixed media) submerged aerated filters (loose media) oxidation beds (trickling filters) compact filters (ie using insulation bats) reed bed filters.

Certification is ranked in four classes: Class 1 – a good septic tank (<250mg/L BOD, 750mg/L COD, <70mg/L TSS) Class 2 – <30mg/L BOD for 150mg/L COD, <30mg/L TSS Class 3 – <20mg/L BOD, 100mg/L COD, <30mg/L TSS, <2mg/L nitrates Class 3b – all of Class 3 plus phosphorus reduction <2mg/L P for three size capacities: 5-15 EP 15-50 EP 50-200 EP Testing involves continuously taking a small amount of effluent over 24 hours plus one grab sample. Faecal coliforms are not tested. To simulate a household situation the following stress tests are periodically conducted:

24 hour power failure high water shock load - equivalent to an insurge of bath and laundry water

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soap-rich washing machine water high levels of urine - simulates a party no flow for three weeks - simulates a holiday.

Accreditation testing set up Photo: IBA Apart from the accreditation program the Wastewater Division of the Business Centre was also testing a number of other onsite systems. One was a mini trickling filter and several others were different types of submerged aerated filters (SAFs). The mini trickling filter was in a three metre deep concrete housing. The oxidation beds consisted of bio-film coated clinker stone, over which the wastewater flowed at the rate of one minute out of every twelve minutes. There was no anaerobic phase (which would reduce nitrates), but being underground the system can operate efficiently even when the outside temperatures are low. The submerged aerated filters contained both fixed and loose plastic media. Experiments were being conducted with different aeration rates and different bubble sizes to assess changes in the effectiveness of treatment. 20. AqN-Consult (architecture & eco-engineering consultancy) Jacob Schiere AqN-Consult Oudeweg 63, 9201 EK Drachten, The Netherlands Ph: +31 (0) 512 542401 Fax: +31 (0) 512 542429 consult@aqn.nl ArqNom@Euronet.nl www.euronet.nl/~arqnom AqN-Consult specialises in architecture and urban ecology. Their logo is ‘emphasising natural conditioning of indoor climates and treatment of waste water’. The company principles are: • Health - contributing to physical and mental health of individual and community • Beauty - responding to all senses • Sustenance - providing for daily needs in a healthy community (social and environmental) Projects: analysis, design, systematisation and evaluation of projects in the social, built and natural peri-urban environments ie water, air, earth, energy and space. Water projects - rational use of freshwater and natural treatment of wastewater.

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NORWAY Percentage of households on onsite systems – 50 % (~ two million people) Overview of sewerage: Norway has a population of 4.5 million people with an average of 3.12 people per house. Approximately 25% of towns in Norway have direct discharge to the North Sea without any treatment, 25% have onsite septic tanks or dry composting toilets, with soil infiltration trenches, and the other 50% have mechanical and chemical based treatment systems to tertiary standard. Even medium sized towns of 1,000 to 8,000 people have community soil absorption systems in colluvial / alluvial soils. Effluent discharged to streams must have a phosphorus content of < 1 mg/L. In 1 January 2001 new regulations for small and intermediate wastewater treatment systems were passed. The new regulations are performance based. This opens up the use of a variety of new systems including constructed wetlands and systems with source separation. The municipalities are required to assess the quality of receiving waters and set discharge permits accordingly. Nitrogen and not phosphorus has recently been shown to be the limiting factor for algal growth in alpine waters. Consequently, emphasis will shift from only phosphorus to also include pathogens and nitrogen when wastewater is discharged to inland waterways. Possibly because of the high percentage of onsite systems in homes and holiday cabins, Norway has many innovative wastewater designers and researchers. I was fortunate to attend a week-long workshop in alternative small scale wastewater systems at the Agricultural University of Norway at Ås, near Oslo. Being at the beginning of my northern European study tour, this course gave me many professional contacts, new friends and a good overview to sewerage systems in Scandinavia. 21. Agricultural University of Norway Dr Petter Jenssen Department of Agricultural Engineering Agricultural University of Norway Box 5065, N-1432 Ås, Norway Pre-treatment Filter System Filtralite Website Diagram Ph: +47 6494 8685 Fax: + 47 6494 8810 petter.jenssen@itf.nlh.no www.nlh.no/itf/english Drs Petter Jenssen, Trond Mæhlum and Odd Jarle Skjelhaugen at the Agricultural University of Norway specialise in designing sewerage systems utilising pre-treatment systems containing kiln fired clay pellets [known as Light Weight Aggregate (LWA)], reed beds and soil absorption systems. A typical treatment train is a septic tank, vertical flow aerobic LWA filter, followed by a horizontal flow, partially anaerobic LWA or alternatively sand filter with reeds. The LWA is manufactured in Norway

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by the company Optiroc. The brand name is Filtralite and it comes in many different sizes and with different properties. A special LWA (Filtralite P) with very high phosphorus sorption capacity is produced for use in constructed wetlands. (Companies in other Europe countries manufacture light-weight aggregate under different brand names.) Nitrification occurs in the vertical flow aerobic LWA filter and denitrification and phosphorus sorption in the following anaerobic bed. By virtue of the high percentage of aluminium, iron, magnesium and calcium ions in the baked clay aggregate, the LWA bed removes phosphorus mainly by precipitation reactions. To avoid freezing, the beds are built 1 metre deep to allow 30 cm of freezing while still having sufficient hydraulic capacity to conduct the water below the frozen zone. The final effluent has < 100 cfu/100 ml of E. coli and phosphorus is < 1 mg/L. Filter unit layers Filtralite Website Diagram

At the campus of the Agricultural University of Norway student dormitories (48 students in 4 adjacent buildings) are equipped with a vacuum toilet system that transports all the blackwater to a holding tank. Trials to compost liquid blackwater together with organic household waste and animal manure have been successful. The liquid composting, which is an aerobic process, hygienizes and deodorizes the waste material. The liquid composting unit that operates with < 1% nitrogen loss has been developed at the Agricultural University of Norway and is now marketed by the company Alfa Laval. Seven units are currently in operation in Norway. The majority of the liquid composting units are farmer operated. In a small municipality not far from Ås, a farmer collects all source separated organic household waste as well as septic tank sludge and holding tank blackwater. This is mixed with animal manure and liquid composted to yield fertilizer which is used on site. The greywater from the student dormitories is treated on-site using a constructed wetland with the design mentioned above. This greywater system is only 2m²/person as compared to 7–9 m²/person for combined greywater and toilet wastewater. The water is treated to swimming water quality (<100cfu/100ml of thermotolerant coliform) and discharged to the stormwater system. In the city centre of Oslo, the capital of Norway, greywater from 33 apartment homes is treated in a beautifully landscaped, compact natural system in the courtyard of the building. The greywater is treated to swimming water quality. The area requirement for this

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experimental system is approximately 1m²/person. The area covering the biofilter is used as a playground. Additional aeration in the summer is provided by a flowform system. It is planned to discharge the treated greywater to a local stream that will be rehabiliated. A school near Ås has an on-site sewerage system using LWA as the treatment medium. The LWA is housed in domed compartments. The sewage is sprayed under high pressure (0.5 to 2.0 bar) over the LWA in frequent small doses. The high pressure ensures that the nozzles are self cleaning. The treatment train consists of a septic tank, the anerobic LWA filter bed, followed by an anerobic LWA filter bed. Conference proceedings: Staudenmann J., Schönborn A. & *Etnier C. (eds.) (1995) Recycling the Resource. 2nd International Conference of the International Ecological Engineering Society. 18-22 September 1995, Zurich, Switzerland. ISBN 0878497412 Kløve B., *Etnier C., Jenssen P.D. & Mæhlum T. (eds.) (1999) Managing the Wastewater Resource: Ecological Engineering for Wastewater Treatment 4th International Conference of the International Ecological Engineering Society 7-11 June 1999, Ås, Norway. *Carl Etnier, formerly at the Agricultural University of Norway, is now at Stone Environmental, Vermont, USA (see section 56). Related publication edited by Carl Etnier, Gunnar Norén and Robert Bogdanowicz (1997) Ecotechnology for Wastewater Treatment: functioning facilities in the Baltic Sea region Coalition Clean Baltic and Polish Ecological Club, Poland. ISBN 8390370239 Recent publications describing the development in Norway are: Jenssen P.D. 2001. Design and performance of ecological sanitation systems in Norway, First International Conference on Ecological Sanitation, Nanning, China. November 5-8, 2001. Heistad, A., Jenssen P.D. and Frydenlund A.S. (2001) ‘A new combined distribution and pre-treatment unit for wastewater soil infiltration systems’. In K. Mancl (ed.) Onsite wastewater treatment. Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Individual and Small Community Sewage Systems, ASAE, pp. 200 – 206. Mæhlum, T. & Jenssen P.D. (2002) ‘Design and performance of integrated subsurface flow wetlands in cold climate’. In: Treatment wetlands in cold climate, Mander Ü. & Jenssen, P.D., Advances in Ecological Sciences no 11, pp. 69-86. WIT Press, Southhampton. Jenssen, P.D. & Krogstad T. (2002) ‘Design of constructed wetlands using phosphorus sorbing lightweight aggregate (LWA)’, in Treatment wetlands in cold climates, Ü. Mander & P.D. Jensson, Advances in Ecological Sciences No. 11, pp. 259-272. WIT Press, Southhampton. Jenssen P.D., Mæhlum, T., Krogstad T. and Vråle L.. (2002) ‘High Performance Constructed Wetlands for Cold Climates’, Paper presented at the 8th International Conference on Wetlands for Water Pollution Control, Arusha Tanzania 16-19 September 2002.

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Ph.D thesis: Mæhlum Trond (1998) Cold-Climate Constructed Wetlands: aerobic pre-treatment and horizontal subsurface flow systems for domestic sewage and landfill leachate purification, Dept. of Agricultural Engineering, Agricultural University of Norway, Ås. For a recent update on wetlands in cold climate: Mander Ü and Jenssen P.D. (2002) ‘Constructed Wetlands for Wastewater Treatment in Cold Climates’, Advances in Ecological Sciences No. 11. WIT Press, Southampton. Mander Ü and Jenssen P.D. (2002) ‘Natural Wetlands for Wastewater Treatment in Cold Climates’, Advances in Ecological Sciences No. 12. WIT Press, Southampton. Filtralite gravel Filtralite Website Photo 22. Optiroc Group AB Vibeke Rystad Sales Engineer Filtralite Optiroc Group AB PO Box 216 Alnabru N-0614 Oslo, Norway Ph: +47 22887700 Fax: +47 22645454 vibeke.rystad@optiroc.com www.filtralite.com An interesting and effective refinement to sewage treatment in northern Europe is the use of a filter bed of lightweight baked clay aggregate that is high is magnesium, calcium, iron and aluminium called ‘Filtralite’. The use of these highly porous inert ceramic particles is growing in popularity due to its ability to adsorb high levels of phosphorus (up to 98%) and nitrates (up to 60%). The filter bed can be used in a pre-treatment unit, a post-treatment unit (see sections 21 and 39) or as the substrate for secondary treatment. Also see Appendix B for further details. Salnes Textile Filter Photo: Salnes Filter 23. Salsnes Filter Ivar Solvi Marketing Manager Salsnes Filter Postbus 279 N-7801 Namsos, Norway Ph: +47 7427 4860 Fax: +47 7427 4859 ivar.solvi@salsnes-filter.no www.salsnes-filter.no There are several interesting mechanical filtering systems manufactured in Norway ie Salnes Filters at Namsos in northern Norway, manufactures a compact textile filter for primary treatment which is half the price of many conventional primary systems and takes up 10% of the space.

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SWEDEN Percentage of households on on-site systems – 10 % (~ one million people) Highlights: Volvo Conference Centre, Smeden and Understenshöjden ecovillages sewerage treatment systems. Overview of Swedish sewerage One million, of the nine million people in Sweden have on-site systems, primarily septic tanks and infiltration tanks. Many of these, particularly around Stockholm and Göteborg, were originally built as holiday cabins for summer use only, but now many are lived in year round. This causes the onsite systems to fail due to overuse and overloading, risking contamination of the groundwater which is used for drinking water in many areas. Subsidies are available to help households fix their failing septic systems. Notwithstanding this increased use of summer cabins, the number of households in country shires is decreasing. People are moving to regional cities, particularly Stockholm and Göteborg. Three technical universities (Chalmers, Luleå, and Lund) are doing research and development (R&D) on innovative sewerage systems. Luleå is doing extensive research into urine-separating toilets. Other sewage research topics at the Universities are life cycle analysis, aquaculture, wet composting, root zone infiltration, effluent irrigation, wetlands, economic analysis and sustainable urban infrastructure. 24. Svenskt Vatten (Swedish Water & Wastewater Association) Roger Bergström Managing Director Svenskt Vatten Liljeholmsvägen 28 SE-117 94, Stockholm, Sweden Ph: +46 (0) 8 506 00200 Fax: +46 (0) 8 506 00210 roger.bergstrom@svensktvatten.se www.svensktvatten.se Örjan Eriksson provided an overview of sewerage in Sweden (see above) and now works for Kommunförbundet. The Svenskt Vatten was set up by the municipalities in 1962 to assist with technical, economic and administrative issues and to represent the interests of the municipalities in negotiations with authorities and other organisations regarding regulations etc. One of the first duties was to collect and evaluate statistical data and to give recommendations and guidelines, and to arrange seminars and short courses for the members. There are several working groups with experts from the members covering the whole field of municipal water and wastewater activities. Svenskt Vatten is a member of the European Union of National Association of Water Suppliers (EUREAU) and administers the national secretariat for the International Water Association (IWA). On an international level they promote export of Swedish ‘know-how’ within the Watersector through Swedish Water Development Ltd (SWD). This company, which is owned by the Swedish Water utilities and Svenskt Vatten

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was set up in 1996, and has carried out several projects in Russia, Poland and Lithuania. All 289 municipalities in Sweden are members of Svenskt Vatten. A quote from Roger Bergström from a presentation to the Swedish Environment Ministry on 13.9.2002 states: “Environmental problems cannot be solved by technical means only. Improving and adjusting the existing systems is not sufficient. We must also look for new systems and ways of handling the situation in the future [but] the most important thing is to enlighten citizens so that they understand the full environmental impact of their own everyday lifestyle”. 25. VA Projects (since November 2001 incorporated into Sweco Viak, a private water and wastewater consultancy) Birgitta Olofsson - now working at: Tyrens AB (infrastructure and construction company) 118 86, Stockholm, Sweden Ph: +46 (0) 8 566 41124 Fax: +46 (0) 8 566 41030 birgitta.olofsson@tyrens.se www.tyrens.se Discussed issues associated with urine separating toilets:

cultural change for men, as it is necessary for them to sit down to urinate crystalisation of urea in pipes and valves (this has now been overcome) leakage from pipes caused by poor construction work the six month storage time to enable pathogen die-off high transport costs and other transport issues related to the use of tankers access to farmers with suitable land to use the urine odour when spraying urine on farmland (urine is now injected into the soil)

European Union has given a directive that urine is only to be used on fodder crops, not on food crops. 26. VERNA Ecology (wastewater consultancy) Urine Storage bladder Photo: C.Porter Jan Wijkmark & Mats Johansson VERNA Ecology Malmgårdsvägen 14 SE-116 38 Stockholm, Sweden Ph: +46 (0) 86417500 Fax: +46 (0) 87021280 info@verna.se www.swedenviro.com VERNA is a member of a group of water, wastewater, environmental consultancies that have formed a collaborative partnership called SWEDENVIRO Consulting Group. The group support each other’s businesses and advance the Swedish onsite wastewater industry. The other companies are Vattenresurs and WRS (Water Revival Systems).

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Six consultants work at VERNA: Mats Johansson, Jan Wijkmark and Tommy Lundberg are systems ecologists; Anna Richert Stintzing specializes in recycling organic fertilisers to agriculture; Maria Lennartsson and Elisabeth Kvarnström, are wastewater engineers who specialize in ecological sanitation and sustainable wastewater treatment. Urine separating toilet Photo: VERNA VERNA specializes in urine diverting systems and new technologies for on-site wastewater treatment. VERNA is also involved with policymaking, education of municipalities and politicians, and quite a few Swedish R&D projects on alternative wastewater treatment. The company ‘Gustavsberg’ (bathroom fixture manufacturer) is now making the third generation of urine-separating toilets with a 0.7 L flush and has solved the problems of leaking water seals and urea crystal formation which previously blocked pipes. VERNA has been involved in developing and evaluating these new toilets for Gustavsberg. VERNA is one of three parties that are responsible for the ‘Ecosanres’ program, an international environment and development program on ecological sanitation, in which most of the Swedish researchers and ecological sanitation experts are involved. More about Ecosanres can be found at www.ecosanres.org . VERNA also carries out ecological sanitation projects in West Africa. VERNA arranges tours and guides foreign guests who want to see the latest projects in

sustainable wastewater treatment in Sweden and Scandinavia. (contact Clare Porter at the Australian Water Association for a report on the AWA Wastewater Technical Tour in northern Europe in 2002.) Together with the other companies in SwedEnviro Consulting Group, VERNA arranges the Swedish conference Wastewater & Recycling where 200-300 people yearly meet to discuss the latest findings.

Urine Injection System, Sweden Photo: C.Porter VERNA has been involved in evaluating and has a very good network in the field of sustainable building and eco-villages in Sweden. Publications in English: Johansson, Mats (2001) Urine separation – Closing the nutrient cycle. Final report from the Swedish R&D project: Source separated human urine hosted by Stockholm Water. This report is available as a download from: http://www.gtz.de/ecosan/download/johansson.pdf

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Available to download or order via www.ccb.se from January 2003 Karin Sundblad & Mats Johansson Ecological engineering in sewage management. Coalition Clean Baltic, Sweden. Mats Johanssson & Maria Lennartsson Sustainable wastewater treatment for single family homes, Coalition Clean Baltic, Sweden. Maria Lennartsson & Peter Ridderstolpe Guidelines for using urine and blackwater diversion systems in single family homes, Coalition Clean Baltic, Sweden. 27. Stockholm Water Daniel Hellström Stockholm Water SE-10636 Stockholm Ph: +46 (0) 8 522 12000 Fax: +46 (0) 8 522 12432 daniel.hellstrom@stockholmvatten.se www.stockholmvatten.se Evaluation of small wastewater treatment systems Stockholm Water has conducted a competition for best practice in small scale sewerage systems suitable for detached houses and other small buildings. The testing period was February 2000 – December 2002. The final report will be available by May 2003. The main objective was to address the lack of alternatives for on-site treatment, which are approved by local authorities in Sweden. Another aim was to find solutions that can reduce the phosphorus load on Lake Bornsjön, the reserve water supply for Stockholm. The project started with an invitation to manufacturers of small treatment plants to supply proposals for how wastewater treatment could be performed for single households. Fourteen systems were selected and classified as package plants, urine separating systems, blackwater separating systems and chemical precipitation as a supplement to sand filter beds. The treatment systems were installed and monitored at 14 one-family homes located 35 km south-west of Stockholm. The technologies tested were selected for their potential ability to achieve a high removal rate of organic matter, nitrogen and phosphorus. They also had to fulfil requirements concerning robustness, nutrient recycling, use of natural resources, economy, user-friendliness and hygiene. All of the systems were able to remove more than 90 % of phosphorus and more than 90 % of organic matter. However, for the package plants, it was necessary to have reliable dosing equipment and frequent checks to achieve long-term phosphorus removal. The source separation systems require well-informed and motivated users to achieve desirable removal efficiency. Urine separation systems were superior with respect to nitrogen removal, though some of the package plants removed >50 % nitrogen removal. Publication Hellström, D., Qvarnström, L., Palm, O., Finnson, A., Pettersson, C.M. (2000) Improvements of sanitary solutions for small wastewater treatment systems, VATTEN 56(1): 15-19.

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28. Swedish Institute of Agricultural & Environmental Engineering Christopher Gruvberger now at→ Malmö VA-verk Swedish Institute of Agricultural & Malmö Water & Sewage Works Environmental Engineering SE-205 80 Malmö, Sweden Box 7033, SE-75007 Uppsala Ph: +46 (0) 403 43752 Ph: +46 (0) 183 03363 Fax: +46 (0) 409 39707 Fax: +46 (0) 183 00956 christopher.gruvberger@malmo.se

www.malmo.se As well as anaerobic composting systems, Gruvberger is also trialling an aerobic wet composting system in Kvicksund. A farmer transports blackwater from a 500 person school (Tegelviken) to his farm. The blackwater is collected in a 0.8L/flush vacuum system at the school. At the farm the blackwater is composted in a closed container into which a compressor continuously adds oxygen as the material is stirred. After the composting period, one-seventh of the material flows out and new material is pumped in. Manure is also added to increase the carbon ratio. It then takes a couple of hours for the material to reach the required 55ºC composting temperature. The mixture then composts at, at least 55ºC for a 12 hours period before one-seventh of the material is again extracted. Most of the pathogens are killed by the 55ºC heat. This composted biosolids or slurry (solids and liquid) is stored in an ordinary manure storage bin with a plastic roof to contain the ammonia and any foul odours. The saturated air from the composting tank is drained off into a soil absorption trench and the composted slurry is spread on the farm twice a year in spring and autumn. The biosolids have a good PKN ratio for Swedish conditions and are used to grow wheat, barley, oats and rye on the farm. The other benefit of this process is that the heavy metal content in the compost mixture is low. Publication This sewage treatment process is described in: Skjelhaugen, O.J. (1999) ‘A farmer-operated system for recycling organic waste’. Journal of Agricultural Engineering. Vol. 73, No. 4, August 1999. 29. Understenshöjden Ecovillage Understenshöjden homes Photo: S.West Robert af Wetterstedt Understenshöjden Ecovillage Understenvagen 113, Bjorkhagen, Stockholm, Sweden now working at: Tyrens AB 118 86, Stockholm, Sweden Ph: +46 (0) 8 566 41393 Fax: +46 (0) 8 566 41301 robert.af.wetterstedt@tyrens.se www.tyrens.se Bioclere Trickling Filter Understenshöjden is a suburban ecovillage on two hectares of land, 20 minutes subway journey from the centre of Stockholm. It has a community of 81 adults and 49 children. It has a decentralised sewerage system for its forty-four households and community centre. The

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treatment system is the Swedish Bioclere Trickling Filter. Although the biochemical oxygen demand and total suspended solids met the required standard, in 2000 the phosphorus level was too high to be discharged to the nearby waterway which flows in to the Baltic Sea, so was retained in a series of wetlands and before being discharged to the municipal sewers. A UV filter is used to disinfect the treated effluent. Bioclere Trickling Filter Photo: S.West Treated Effluent Pond Photo: S.West

30. Water Revival Systems Uppsala AB Alhagen Wetland, Sweden Photo: L.Nilsson Peter Ridderstolpe WRS Uppsala AB Östra Ågatan 53, SE-753 22 Uppsala, Sweden Ph: +46 (0) 1810 2303, 1810 4540 Fax: +46 (0) 1860 4181 wrs@swedenviro.com www.swedenviro.se The professional staff at Water Revival Systems consists of Peter Ridderstolpe, applied ecologist, Jonas Andersson and Ebba af Petersens, agronomists, Yvonne Byström, biologist, and Daniel Stråe, soil scientist. WRS designs wastewater treatment systems for small villages with failing municipal sewerage treatment systems and for individual homes, using technologies aimed at recycling resources and reducing pollution. The range of technologies used includes alternatives at the source and at the ‘end of the pipe’. Technologies at the source include urine separating toilets, blackwater and greywater separation, mixed wastewater in a septic tank, and composting toilets. Treatment technologies at the ‘end of the pipe’ include primary treatment in a septic tank with forest irrigation; septic tank followed by a trickling filter or sand filter before recycling to wetlands, crops or biofilter ditch; or a sequencing batch reactor. The sewerage solution designed for Vadsbro, a small town of 45 homes with an old centralised system in need of upgrading, involved retrofitting septic tanks to each home for solids separation (US$20,000), a community scale trickling filter (US$12,500) and a biofilter ditch for final polishing (US$20,000). The cost of pumping was reduced by 80% and the use of chemicals was eliminated.

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WRS has extensive experience in consulting and contract work both inside and outside of Sweden. The staff possesses a thorough knowledge of conventional wastewater management technologies as well as new “natural treatment technologies”. One of their special skills is in finding the most suitable wastewater treatment method when upgrading or constructing new systems in residential areas. Other specialities are creating recycling systems by using source separating toilet systems and designing soil filter beds and wetland systems for wastewater and storm-water treatment. They also have extensive expertise in constructing and operating vegetated sludge drainage beds. Publications: SwedEnviro (1999) Wastewater Treatment in a Small Village – options for upgrading Report No. 1999:1, Coalition Clean Baltic. SwedEnviro (2001) Market survey – Extremely low flush toilets plus urine diverting toilets and urinals for collection of black water and/or urine. Report No. 2001:1, Coalition Clean Baltic. 31. Järna Anthroposophical Initiatives Jarna Concert Hall Photo: S.West Marina Billa, Public Relations Järna Anthroposophical Initiatives Skillebyholm S-15391 Järna, Sweden Ph: +46 (0)8 551 57785 Fax: +46 (0)8 551 57976 marina.billa@skillebyholm.org www.skillebyholm.org www.anthroposophy.net Nigel Wells ‘Virbela Atelje’ (Flowform manufacturing) Brogärde Gard, Mikaelgården S-13591 Flowform aerating treated effluent Photo: S.West Järna, Sweden Ph: +46 (0)8 551 50335 Fax: +46 (0)8 551 50335 virbela@algonet.se www.algonet.se/~virbela

The anthroposophical centre (inspired by Rudolf Steiner principles) at Järna consists of apartments and houses for 60 families, a 300 student school, a 60 student teachers college, an 80 bed hospital, a day surgery, a concert hall with seating for 500 people, a shop, two cafés and several businesses such as the anthroposophical architecture consultancy, a bio-dynamic farm, a dairy, a bakery and sawmill. One of the many successful associated businesses is 'Virbela Atelje', a 'Flowform' design and manufacturing company created by

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Nigel Wells. The Flowforms are sold throughout Scandinavia and the rest of Europe. Sewage from all the buildings and the dairy at the centre flows through a number of aesthetically pleasing constructed wetlands, sand filters, Flowforms and reedbeds before the treated effluent is discharged to the Baltic Sea. The sludge is separated, dewatered and composted on site. The Bio-Dynamic Agricultural Research Institute at Järna is following the effects of using composted sewage sludge on the quality of edible plant as well as the environmental impact of growing and selling the produce locally.

Water cascades in a Figure 8 in a Flowform Photo:S.West 32. Stensund Folk College Aquaculture treating sewerage Photo: S.West Bjorn Guterstam (now works at) The Global Water Partnership, Secretariat Hantverkargatan 5 SE-112 21 Stockholm Ph: +46 (0) 8 562 61919 Fax: +46 (0) 8 562 61901 bjorn.guterstam@gwpforum.org www.gwpforum.org Stensund Aquaculture completed operations in late 2000. It is now a case study presented by the International Ecological Engineering Society (IEES) (www.iees.ch). Aquaculture Stensund Folk College housed the world renowned aquaculture system treating sewage from a residential high school. Built in 1988 and 1989 for $1 million and closed in late 2000. Operating costs of AUS$230,000 per year covered salary, equipment, testing, chemicals, seeds, and electricity (AUS$30,000). The sludge was composted by the nearby Trosa Municipality wastewater treatment plant and used on agricultural fields. The treatment train consisted of : Fish in wastewater tank Photo: S.West

1. primary collection and settling of raw wastewater

2. anaerobic tank 3. aerobic tank 4. aerated activated sludge incorporating

chemoautotrophic bacteria, phytoplankton and fish feeding on sludge

5. originally a zooplankton tank, but this was unsuccessful so goldfish were incorporated

6. large tank containing a variety of species of fish occupying different niches -

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tilapias, grass carp, common carp, catfish, goldfish and vegetarian piranha 7. Hydroponic cultivation of plants eg tomatoes and willows 8. flowform or stepped ‘waterfall’ for aeration 9. small outdoor pond containing crayfish and water plants 10. willow wetland 11. subsurface infiltration to the Baltic Sea.

The plants grown on the surface of these tanks to aid treatment were water lettuce (Pistia stratiotes), Azolla filiculoides, duckweed (Lemna minor), Salvina auriculata, Water Hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) and tomatoes (Lycopersicon sp.). The average water temperature was 20ºC. Effluent quality achieved after step 8 was: Nitrogen – 60% reduction Phosphorus – 70% reduction Biochemical oxygen demand – 90 - 95% Total coliforms – 1,000 – 3,000 CFU / 100 mL Proposed technical improvements were urine separating toilets and advanced pre-treatment to further reduce nutrients. The Global Water Partnership is an international network of water experts from all sectors working to support countries in achieving water security through Integrated Water Resources Management. The mandate is based on the principles of sustainability as they were formulated in Rio and Dublin in 1992. The Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002, also sent out a strong message and formulated an alliance to secure people’s water supply and sanitation. Duplex house and Community house Photo: S.West 33. Smeden Ecovillage Pia Larsson Smeden Ecovillage Korgebovägen 67, SE-55308 Jönköping, Sweden Ph: +46 (0) 36199508 (BH) pia_larsson@swipnet.se www.crosswinds.net/~ecovillage Community of 46 adults and 23 children. Toilets are low flush design (3 L) and urine separating. Black water is treated at the household level by an Aquatron. The Aquatron separates solids and liquid by centrifugal force. The wastewater from the Aquatron is diverted to join the greywater collection tank, while the faeces and toilet paper are composted in a vermiculture system in the basement of each home. After one year or more, the mature compost is removed and used to fertilise berry bushes in the garden. Greywater is treated in a Bioclere trickling filter before being ‘polished’ in a constructed pond, a constructed stream and natural wetland and then discharged to a nearby stream. Low phosphorus detergents are used by everyone in the community to reduce the impact on the wetlands and stream. Urine from all of the houses is piped to and stored in two 30 m³ tanks, dug into the ground. The urine is used by local farmers as fertiliser twice a year in spring and autumn.

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34. Aquatron International AB Torgny Sundin Managing Director Aquatron BOX 2086 SE 19402 Upplands Väsby, Sweden Ph: +46 8 590 30450 Fax: +46 8 590 30494 torgny@aquatron.se www.aquatron.se Aquatron separator Website Diagram The company Aquatron International AB was founded in 1992 to manufacture the Aquatron Biological Toilet System, and other related environmentally friendly products. The Aquatron is a wet composting system for blackwater only. It is in the shape of an hour-glass and has the advantages of no moving parts and no electricity requirements for the separation process.

It can be positioned nearly below, or up to and in some circumstances more than 12 metres from the conventional ‘water closet’ toilet. Up to three toilets can be connected to the smaller household model Aquatrons. As each flush of blackwater flows into the top of the Aquatron, its shape causes the water to swirl around the inside walls and to subsequently flow out a pipe at the base of the unit, while the solids drop down through the middle opening into a collection chamber below.

Twin Aquatron for high rise building Website Photo The toilet flush water (which is relatively clean as most of the solids have been separated out) passes through a UV unit for disinfection before it is piped to the greywater tank. A complex microbiological and vermiculture ecosystem decomposes the solids in the collecting chamber below the Aquatron to one-tenth the original volume. In NSW this composted material must be buried in the garden for a further 3 months before being dug up again for beneficial use in

the garden as a soil conditioner. It is not to be used in the vegetable garden. The Aquatron can service holiday homes, any size family home, apartment blocks and commercial premises. There are six main product lines:

• Aquatron 90 – holiday homes • Aquatron 400 – permanent family homes • Aquatron 4x100 – holiday or small family homes • Aquatron 4x200 – permanent family homes • Aquatron 4x300 – intermediate size buildings • Aquatron Separators – for other equipment

manufacturers (ie Elemental Solutions, UK buys only the Aquatron separator and builds their own collection chamber)

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The major markets for the Aquatron are Sweden, Finland, Norway, Ireland and the UK. There are also several installations in Germany, Romania, Poland, Spain, Belize, the USA, Canada and Australia. Also see sections 14 ‘Elemental Solutions’ and 33 ‘Smeden Ecovillage’, and Appendix B for further details and examples. 35. Göteborg University Prof. Göran Dave Dr Marie Adamsson Dept of Applied Environmental Science Dept of Applied Env. Science Göteborg University Göteborg University Box 464, 40530 Göteborg, Sweden Box 464, 40530 Göteborg Ph: +46 (0) 31 773 3776 Ph: +46 (0) 31 773 3752 Fax: +46 (0) 31 773 2984 Fax: +46 (0) 31 773 2984 goran.dave@miljo.gu.se marie.adamsson@miljo.gu.se www.miljo.gu.se www.miljo.gu.se Aquaculture Algae Tanks Photo: M.Adamsson A small experimental wastewater aquaculture system was in operation at the University, utilising the zooplankton Daphnia as a key component of the food chain to utilise the nutrients in the urine. Daphnia fed on algae and small pathogenic organisms in the wastewater, and were in turn eaten by fish. Co-incidentally the Daphnia acted as the ‘canary’ species to indicate toxic levels of ammonia in the wastewater. An aquaculture system fed by human urine has now been built at the new public Science Centre in Göteborg. Named the “Universeum”, it opened in 2001 (www.universeum.se). All visitors (~ 500,000 per year) and personnel use urine separating toilets. Urine collects in a small separate bowl in the front of the toilet which is partitioned off from the back bowl. The urine flows to a storage tank in the basement. A portion of the urine is used in agriculture after it has been stored for six months to allow the natural die-off of any potential pathogens. Besides aquaculture, a research project is being conducted by Ph.D candidate Zsofia Ban, on the crystallisation of ‘Struvite’ (K,NH4,Mg,PO4 x 6H2O) for nutrient reclamation from urine and the reduction of wastewater volume. Struvite is found in guano. The research is focusing on how to produce Struvite powder from urine. Potentially, the white powder could then be used in agriculture in the same way as chemical fertilizer.

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Marie Adamsson wrote her Ph.D thesis (1999) on the ‘Treatment of Domestic Wastewater by Aquaculture’ and found that heavy metals such as copper, detergents and ammonia in wastewater can be toxic to aquatic organisms. This thesis was used as the basis for the construction and design of the wastewater system at the Universeum. 36. MISTRA - Sustainable Urban Water Management Program Dr Per-Arne Malmqvist Chalmers University of Technology 41296 Göteberg, Sweden Ph: +46 (0) 31 772 2137 pam@urbanwater.chalmers.se www.urbanwater.se/default_eng.htm The aims of the program are to:

create a non-toxic environment in Sweden improve health and hygiene conserve human resources conserve natural resources conserve financial resources create high functional water security ensure water and sanitation systems are adapted to local conditions promote responsible behaviour by users.

37. Scandiaconsult Gunilla Jansson Dr Erik Kärrman Scandiaconsult Scandiaconsult Box 5343, 40227 Göteborg, Sweden Box 4205, 102 65 Stockholm Ph: +46 (0)313353300 Ph: +46 8 6156000 gunilla.jansson@scc.se erik.karrman@scc.se www.scc.se www.scc.se In 2001 Scandiaconsult designed and installed a biological on-site sewerage treatment system and effluent irrigation system at the Årsta slott/Haninge golf course. In 2002, together with Water Revival Systems, a preliminary study was conducted on different options for on-site systems with nutrient recycling for the Lycksta area in Västerås. The study included urine separation, blackwater separation and irrigation of energy forests. In 2002-2003 a study was carried out for Stockholm Water on a distribution system for blackwater in the area of Hammarby sjöstad. 38. Chalmers University of Technology Dr Erik Kärrman (now at Scandiaconsult – see no. 37) Department of Water Environment Transport Chalmers University of Technology SE-41296 Göteborg, Sweden Ph: +46 (0) 317722167 Fax: +46(0) 317722128 www.wet.chalmers.se

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Dr Erik Kärrman’s Ph.D thesis (2000) ‘Environmental Systems Analysis of Wastewater Management’ provides a framework for evaluating the sustainability of wastewater systems within the categories of Health and Hygiene, Social and Cultural, Environmental, Economic, and Functional and Technical. The substance flow model ORWARE (ORganic WAste REsearch) was combined with Life Cycle Assessment and Analysis of Primary Energy to evaluate environmental impacts and the usage of resources. 39. Volvo Conference Centre, Bokenäs Filtralite bed with reeds & sand filter Photo:S.West Glenn Carlsson Celero Support AB Informationsteknik, ARX3 SE-405 08 Göteborg, Sweden Ph: +46 (0) 31 3220824 glenn.carlsson@volvo.com www.bokenaes.com/eng/starteng.htm Established in 1993 the Volvo Resort & Conference Centre consists of a 200 person conference centre, a resort for 600 people during the summer period, several restaurants and 100 fully equipped apartments at Bokenäs, a rural area in the south-west of Sweden, to the north of Göteborg. In order to discharge to the adjacent waterway the licence consent from the Swedish EPA stipulated that nutrients, solids and pathogens were to be undetectable in the final effluent. The sewerage system treats blackwater and greywater separately. Food scraps from the kitchen waste disposal and toilet water is piped to a 157m³ anaerobic digester. The digester is designed for a solids loading of 6 to 8%, at which level enough biogas would be produced to supply all the energy for heating the unit. Paper is added, but this only brings the solids level up to 2%. The digester requires 400 KW hours per day of energy – 50 are

supplied by the biogas and the other 350 by electricity. The optimum temperature for anaerobic microbes to thrive in this reactor is 35ºC. Iron chloride is added to the digester to precipitate hydrogen sulphide, thus avoiding corrosion problems. Retention time in the digester is 18 days, followed by 7 days in a settling tank. Solids, which previously were spread on a local farmer’s field, must now be transported to a nearby municipal sewage treatment plant due to European Union regulations and subsidies. The effluent from the settling tank is added to the greywater and further treated.

Wetland Treatment Photo: S.West Wastewater from the dishwashing machines, showers and sinks (5 m³ per hour in the peak season) is piped to a sedimentation tank before being treated in a Bioclere aerobic trickling filter where micro-biological action reduces the solids. The effluent is then transferred to a tank where Ecofloc 70 is added to precipitate phosphorus out. The precipitate is pumped

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back to the digester. The effluent then passes into a wetland system consisting of two ponds (700 m³ and 300 m³), with a detention time of one month each, and separated by a water race or aerating rapids. Until 1998 two sand filters were the final step in the treatment train, however, as nutrients were still detectable, a 200 m³ bed of Filtralite (light weight aggregate - see section 22) planted out with reeds was installed. After the Filtralite bed, effluent passes through a UV filter and is then reused for toilet flushing or beach showers, with the excess being discharged to sea. Svanholm Aerated Wastewater Plant Photo: S.West 40. Lund University Jes la cour Jansen Dept. of Water & Environmental Engineering Lund University Box 117, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden Ph: +46 46 222 8999 Fax: +46 46 222 4720 jes.la_cour_jansen@vateknik.luth.se jlacour@inet.uni2.dk www.lu.se/lu/engindex.html Lund University has been conducting research on urine separating toilets and the potential use of urine in agriculture at the Svanholm ecovillage (70 adults and 35 children in 2000) in northern Denmark. Svanholm is the largest producer of organically grown fruit and vegetables in Denmark, and also produces ‘ecological’ milk from a dairy herd of 100 cows. The community’s sewerage treatment system is an activated sludge plant. The research will also investigate what effect source separation has on the sewage treatment plant. Currently, urine cannot be used in ‘ecological’ farming in countries belonging to the European union. However, the Svanholm community hopes that in the future there will be a regulatory change allowing them to use their urine as part of their ecological sustainable farming practices. At present, once collected, urine must be stored for six months to allow sufficient time for pathogen die-off, before being used on pasture not certified ‘organic’. Aeration tanks with algae Photo: S.West

The urine collected at Svanholm has been tested and found to contain female hormones and analgesics. There were no other medical residuals present. The nutrient quality of the urine as a fertiliser is high. The following references on urine separation and the use of urine as a fertiliser have been compiled by students of Jes la cour Jansen at Lund University:

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References Günther, F. (1992) ‘Phosphorous flux and society structure’. A Holistic Approach to Water Management - Finding Lifestyles and Measures for Minimising Harmful Fluxes from Land to Water. Proceedings, Stockholm Water Symposium 10-14 Aug 1992, 267-298 Haglund, J-E., Olofsson, B., Rydén, M. and Tideström H. (1999) Complementary sewage systems for apartments blocks and public premises. VA-FORSK, Report 1999-10. (in Swedish) Hanaeus, Å. and Johansson, E. (1996) Urine separating systems – Inventory, evaluation and laboratory experiments. Luleå University of Technology. Master Thesis, 1996:176E. (in Swedish) Hanaeus, J., Hellström, D. and Johansson, E. (1997) ’A study of a urine separation system in an ecological village in northern Sweden’. Water Science and Technology, 35(9): 153-160 Johansson, E. (1996) Urine Separating Wastewater Systems – Design Experiences and Nitrogen Conservation. Luleå University of Technology. Licentiate Thesis, 1999:43. Jönsson, H., Burström, A. and Svensson, J. (1998). Measurements on two urine separating sewage systems. Urine solution; toilet usage and time spent at home in an eco village and an apartment district. Department of Agricultural engineering, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala. Report 228. (in Swedish) Jönsson, H., Vinnerås, B., Höglund, C., Stenström, T.A., Dalhammar, G. & Kirchmann, H. (2000) Källstorterad humanurin I kretslopp. VA-FORSK RAPPORT 1. VAV, Stockholm Kirchmann, H. and Petterson, S. (1995) ‘Human urine - Chemical composition and fertilizer use efficiency’. Fertilizer Research, 40(2), 149-154. Swedish EPA (1995) The content of nutrients and heavy metals in urine, faeces and in water from dishes, laundries, baths and showers. Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, Stockholm. Report 4425. (in Swedish) Swedish EPA (1998) Sewage for recycling. A perspective of behavior on the creation, management and use of urine separating systems. Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, Stockholm. Report 4884. (in Swedish) Vinneråas, B. (1996) Faecal separation and urine diversion for nutrient management of household biodegradable waste and wastewater. Department of Agricultural engineering. Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala 2001, Report 244, Licentiate Thesis

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41. Luleå University of Technology Algae Plant & Orrivken WSPs Photo: J.Hanaeus Prof. Jorgen Hanaeus Erika Johansson Division of Sanitation Engineering Luleå University of Technology 971 87, Luleå, Sweden Ph: + 46 (0) 920 491492 Fax: +46 (0) 920 491493 jorgen.hanaeus@sb.luth.se erika.Johansson@sb.luth.se www.luth.se/index2.en.htm The Luleå University, in northern Sweden, has been active in small-scale wastewater technology since the end of the 1980’s. Focus has been given to cold climate solutions, and to urine separating (diverting) systems and nutrient utilisation research. Publications: Hanæus, J. (1991) Wastewater treatment by chemical precipitation in ponds. Dissertation 1991:095, Luleå University of Technology

Hedström, A. & Hanæus, J. (1999) Natural freezing, drying and composting for treatment of septic sludge. Journal of Cold Regions Engineering, 13 (4), 167-179, 1999 Hellström, D. (1998) Nutrient Management in Sewerage Systems: Investigations of Components and Exergy Analysis. Dissertation 1998:02, Luleå University of Technology Hellström, D. (1999) Exergy Analysis: A Comparison of Source Separation Systems and Conventional Treatment Systems. Water Environment Research, Vol 71, No 7, 1354-1363. Johansson, E. (1999) Urine Separating Wastewater Systems: Design Experiences and Nitrogen Conservation. Licentiate Thesis 1999:43, Luleå University of Technology DENMARK Percentage of households on on-site systems – < 15% (~ 350,000 people) Highlights: willow treatment at Hjortshöj & reedbeds at Dyssekilde ecovillages Overview of Denmark: There are 5.5 million people and 2.5 million households in Denmark, 160,000 of which are not sewered (~55,000 holiday cottages and 105,000 farms and residences).

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42. Folkecenter for Renewable Energy Underground Training Centre Photo: S.West Preben Maegaard PO Box 208, DK-7760 Hurup, Thy, Denmark Ph: +45 9795 6600 Fax: +45 9795 6565 pm@folkecenter,dk www.folkecenter.dk Experimental research and demonstration centre for water and energy based sustainable technologies:

Anaerobic plant treats pig manure and abattoir offcuts to produce biogas Canola seed is grown, harvested and milled to produce meal for the pigs and oil to

fuel 2 bio-diesel cars Water is converted to oxygen and hydrogen to produce hydrogen-fuel Wind turbines produce electricity (there are also private 150 wind turbines in the area) A range of commercial and ‘home-made’ photovoltaic cells and solar collectors

produce electricity and heat water Geodesic dome houses 2 ponds feed by stormwater runoff that produce ornamental

plants and vegetables Sewage treatment units ranging in size from a single home to a cluster of homes,

based on aquatic plants and housed in green-houses or poly-tubes. Experimental demonstration sewage treatment train for a single house included:

i) a septic tank ii) 3 aerated vats with 20 species of native plants iii) 1 aerated vats filled with broken mussel shells for fixed substrate and duckweed

floating on the surface for nutrient removal iv) 1 pond filled with aquatic plants, fish, frogs and salamanders.

Aquaculture wastewater treatment system Photos: S.West Cut-away of mussel shell filter

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43. Technical University of Denmark Peter Steen Mikkelsen Environment & Resources DTU (E&R) Technical University of Denmark Bygingstorvet, 2800 Kgs. Lyngby Ph: +45 45252525 Fax: +45 45251605 psm@er.dtu.dk www.er.dtu.dk Additional key-persons at E&R with in this field are Ann Marie Eilersen, Mogens Henze, Eva Eriksson, and Anna Ledin. Research:

Small scale sewerage Technology Information Tool - multi-criteria analysis tool Nutrient reuse investigations in 5 zones from inner city to rural areas Reuse of greywater and issues regarding infiltration Source separation Xenobiotic compounds in different types of wastewater.

Publications: Eilersen, A.M. & Henze, M. (2001) ‘Energy related to sustainable waste handling technology’. In: Frontiers in urban water management: Deadlock or hope? Proceedings to the Symposium Marseilles, France, 18-20 June 2001. International Hydrological Programme (IHP-V) Technical Documents in Hydrology No. 45, pp. 209-218. UNESCO, Paris. Smith, M., Nielsen, S.B., Hauger, M.B., Gabriel, S., Eilersen, A.M., Elle, M., Henze, M., Hoffmann, B. & Mikkelsen, P.S. (2001) Vurdering af spildevandsløsninger i det åbne land - et casestudie om Hillerød Kommune. (Assessment of wastewater handling in the country - a case study of Hillerød municipality, in Danish). Miljø & Ressourcer DTU og BYG-DTU, Danmarks Tekniske Universitet og Hedeselskabet Miljø og Energi, Kgs. Lyngby. http://www.er.dtu.dk/publications/fulltext/2001/MR2001-160.pdf Wrisberg, S., Magid, J., Eilersen, A.M., Henze, M. & Balslev, S. (2001) Vurdering af muligheder og begrænsninger for recirkulering af næringstoffer fra by til land. (Assessing the possibilities and barriers for closing the rural - urban nutrient cycle, in Danish). Miljøstyrelsen, København. (Økologisk Byfornyelse og Spildevandsrensning 14). pp. 1-238. http://www.mst.dk/udgiv/Publikationer/2001/87-7944-655-8/pdf/87-7944-656-6.PDF Hoffmann, B., Nielsen, S.B., Elle, M., Gabriel, S., Eilersen, A.M., Henze, M. & Mikkelsen, P.S. (2000) ‘Assessing the sustainability of small wastewater systems. A context-oriented planning approach’. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 20, 347-357. Smith, M., Hauger, M.B., Hoffmann, B., Mikkelsen, P.S. & Gabriel, S. (2001) Spildevandet på Christiansø skal reguleres. (‘Possibilities for green wastewater treatment on Christiansø Island’, in Danish). Ny Viden fra Miljøstyrelsen, (4), 73-78. Danish:http://www.mst.dk/udgiv/NyViden/2001_4/07011217.htm English:http://www.mst.dk/project/NyViden/2001/12170000.htm

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Smith, M., Hauger, M.B., Hoffmann, B., Gabriel, S. & Mikkelsen, P.S. (2001) ‘Options for sustainable sanitation at Christiansø - a small island in the Baltic’. (Poster No. B2085). In: IWA 2nd World Water Congress. Efficient Water Management - Making it Happen, Berlin, 15-19 October 2001. Preprints. CD-ROM.Track 6: Wastewater Treatment - State of the art and advanced techniques. Posters, IWA Publishing, London, UK. Smith, M., Hauger, M.B., Mikkelsen, P.S., Gabriel, S. & Hoffmann, B. (2001) Muligheder for økologisk spildevandshåndtering på Christiansø. (‘Options for sustainable sanitation at Christiansø - a small island in the Baltic’, in Danish). Miljøstyrelsen, København. (Økologisk Byfornyelse og Spildevandsrensning 13). pp. 1-115. http://www.mst.dk/udgiv/Publikationer/2001/87-7944-630-2/pdf/87-7944-631-0.pdf Eriksson, E., Auffarth, K., Henze, M. & Ledin, A. (2002) ‘Characteristics of grey wastewater’. Urban Water, 4, 85-104. Eriksson, E.H. (2002) Potential and problems related to reuse of water in households. Ph.D. Thesis. Environment & Resources DTU. Technical University of Denmark, Kgs. Lyngby. (In press). pp. 1-41 + appendix. Eriksson, E., Henze, M. & Ledin, A. (2001) ‘Xenobiotic organic compounds in grey wastewater: A matter of concern?’ In: Frontiers in urban water management: Deadlock or hope? Proceedings to the Symposium Marseilles, France, 18-20 June 2001. International Hydrological Programme (IHP-V) Technical Documents in Hydrology No. 45, pp. 84-91. UNESCO, Paris. Web-site specifically targeting wastewater management in non-sewered settlements, but however in Danish: www.er.dtu.dk/projects/kloaklose Hjortshöj Rammed Earth Homes Photo: S.West 44. Hjortshöj Ecovillage Peter Myatt Hjortshöj Ecovillage Möllevej 188, 8530 Hjortshöj Ph: +45 86 227484 myattpeter@hotmail.com www.andelssamfundet.dk Hjortshöj Ecovillage is an ecological intentional community of 100 adults and 70 children, situated in Jutland, near Aarhus the second largest city in Denmark. There are three solutions for sewage treatment within the community: 1. Dry composting toilets with a connection to the sewer for household greywater; 2. Urine collection from urine separating toilets with the rest of the household blackwater and greywater going to the city sewers;

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3. Eighteen adults and thirteen children have urine-separating and dry composting toilets, with the urine being used in the timber plantation to grow wood for the central heating fuel burner. Greywater is treated by a willow evapo-transpiration bed. The system comprises two 1000 m² lined pits filled with sand and gravel, and covered with a layer of soil in which the willows grow, plus a 1000 m² reedbed for summer use. One third of the willows are harvested each year. The system is zero discharge – no effluent flows out of the bed even in rainy weather. The effluent is reduced through evaporation and transpiration. Willow Tree Greywater Treatment System Photo: S.West

Krüger Activated Sludge Plant – 300 EP Photo: S.West 45. Krüger A/S Bjarne Iversen Krüger A/S Klamsagervej 2-4, DK-8230 Abyhøj Ph: +45 87463300 Fax: +4587463310 bi@kruger.dk www.kruger.com Activated sludge plants The community of Groenbaek near Aarhus has an in-ground wastewater treatment plant servicing 300 people. Manufactured by Krüger the plant is just 7 m across and 6 m deep. The chemical-free, activated sludge process provides full denitrification and produces effluent of high quality, applicable for ecologically sensitive areas. The one tank process train consists of a grit chamber, an activated sludge section, a settling compartment and a final section for reoxygenating the effluent before discharge. The benefits of this mini-biological plant are:

easy access and no fencing required no smell or noise continuous wastewater treatment little maintenance required low cost of operation sludge removal only a few times per year.

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The mini-plant is also suitable for upgrading primary treatment plants required to comply with stricter effluent standards. The photograph shows how unobtrusive the plant is. Simply located, unfenced beside a road, most people would not know that the structure is a sewage treatment plant.

Krüger Air Blowers & Control Shed Photo: S.West Kilian Rainwater Tank Website Photo 46. Kilian Water René Kilian Kilian Water Vrads Sandevej 2, Vrads, 8654 Bryrup Ph: +45 75757901 kilianwater@get2net.dk www.kilianwater.com René Kilian designs natural, integrated solutions for wastewater, rainwater and drinking water. His motto is ‘more with less’, which in practice equates to a high quality in each waterstream, with less use of water and materials. The applications include:

compact constructed wetland nutrient removal from greywater reuse of treated greywater use of rainwater vitalising drinking water use of zero-water toilets.

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47. Dyssekilde Ecovillage Constructed hill with willow and reed filtration Photos: C.Hensch Niels Gammelby Dyssekilde Ecovillage Hågendrupvej 6, Torup 3390 Hundested Ph/Fax: +45 47987907 gammelby@get2net.dk Community of 90 adults and 30 children. Houses have low flush toilets. Water conservation is practiced in the community, resulting in an average usage of 75 litres per person per day. The average in Denmark is 150 L/p/d. Sewage (black and grey water) is collected in septic tanks. The effluent from the septic tanks is pumped up to the top of a specially made conical hill, where it flows through a diverter into one of six reedbeds which

flank the hill. Each of the reedbeds receives wastewater each day. At the base of the hill the effluent is aerated as it passes through a flowform before entering a pond filled with aquatic plants inside a greenhouse. On coming out of the greenhouse, the effluent is used to irrigate willows (harvested every 3 years) before it finally infiltrates into 200 m² of ground.

Greenhouse effluent polishing Photo: C.Hensch Dyssekilde Wastewater Ttreatment Plant Schematic Rensekilden Brochure

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GERMANY Percentage of people with on-site systems – 7.8 % (~ 6.3 million people) Highlight: Flintenbreite, Lübeck 48. OtterWasser GmbH Flintenbreite Duplexes Photo: S.West Univ. Prof. Dr-Ing Ralf Otterpohl Dept. of Civil Engineering Technical University of Hamburg-Harburg Ph: +49 (040) 42878 3207 Fax: +49 (040) 42878 2684 otterpohl@tuhh.de www.tuhh.de/aww (projects and research on treatment options for blackwater, greywater & urine separating toilet systems) www.tuhh.de/susan [Ecological Sanitation Conference (Ecosan - Closing The Loop) - Lübeck 7-11 April 2003] Bio-gas digestion system Photo: C.Hensch Dr Martin Oldenburg Andrea Albold OtterWasser GmbH Engelsgrube 81, 23552 Lübeck Ph: +49 (0)4517020051 Fax: +49 (0)4517020052 oldenburg@otterwasser.de albold@otterwasser.de www.otterwasser.de Flintenbreite (Ecovillage), Lübeck 117 apartments (for 350 people) with 0.7 – 1.0 L vacuum flush toilets have been built on 3.5 Ha in the city of Lübeck. Blackwater only is treated in an anaerobic biogas digestor. Vegetable waste from the kitchen is collected and added to the digestor. The digestor produces 10 – 15 % of the energy demands of the residences. Digested sludge is recycled to agriculture. Greywater is treated in constructed wetlands. Lambertsmühle project, near Cologne Urine separation toilets and wet composting treatment system.

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49. Oekotec Eco-Engineering Golfclub, Johannesthaler Hof, Pforzheim Website Photo Joachim Niklas Oekotec Eco-Engineering Rosa-Luxemburg-Strasse 89 14806 Belzig, Germany Ph: +49 (0) 33 841 38890 Fax: +49 (0) 33 841 38810 info@oekotec-eco-engineering.com www.oekotec-eco-engineering.com Innovative aerated wastewater tanks, soil filters and willow tree treatment systems After 20 years experience in wastewater treatment using soil filters, the main focus of the company is now the reuse of wastewater. Oekotec is currently working on an international joint research project with Mexican partners to improve the already good hygienic performance of soil filters with additional treatment steps. With partners in India (the Central Pollution Control Board, Delhi and Anna University, Madras) Oekotec has installed research plants for dairy and household wastewater with reuse options. One of the plants is also a demonstration plant on the University Campus. The reuse of greywater is a standard practice of the company. They offer soil filters as container plants for the reuse of household greywater. A companion product is Oekotec’s wastewater composter, where the solids are composted aerobically. In some projects they have created a wastewater free household ie zero emissions. Another field of development and application is the treatment of street runoff. Currently Oekotec is doing research on controlled salt dilution and on optimising the dimensioning procedures through computer simulation programs. One research project, completed in 2002, studied the treatment and reuse of wastewater with a high nitrogen content, ie concentrated toilet waste water. Household system (12EP) Birkenfeld Website Photo Household (6EP), Hagelberg Oekotec Website Photo

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SWITZERLAND Percentage of households on on-site or decentralised systems – 4 % (~ 200,000 people) Overview of Swiss sewerage Decentralised sewerage systems have been installed in many Swiss villages. Sewage is collected in septic tanks at each home and then piped to a local treatment system, usually a soil filter reedbed or an underground sand filter. The septic tanks contain effluent or outlet filters, to reduce the volume of solids entering the treatment plants. However, approximately 40,000 residences in agricultural areas simply have a septic tank that discharges to an infiltration trench or a nearby creek. Reedbeds and sand filters are also used to treat sewage locally at airports, resorts and restaurants. 50. EAWAG Prof. Dr. Markus Boller Head, Urban Water Management EAWAG (Swiss Federal Institute for Environmental Science and Technology) PO Box 611, Ueberlandstrasse 133 CH-8600 Duebendorf, Switzerland Ph: +41 1 8 23 5047 Fax: +41 1 8 23 5389 markus.boller@eawag.ch www.eawag.ch www.novaquatis.eawag.ch Research on many aspects of onsite and decentralised sewerage systems, including urine separation, nutrient transport and economic comparison of different systems ie trickling filters, reedbeds and aerated wastewater treatment systems (AWTS) has been conducted at EAWAG through the project NOVAQUATIS (Innovative Management of Anthropogenic Nutrients in Urban Water Management and Agriculture). See the website above for the list of the research projects and recent publications. Treatment system design guidelines have also been produced. Currently a committee is focused on transferring the guidelines and research into practical applications. Procedures are also being developed to outline the best practice for piping effluent from single houses and clusters of houses to small treatment plants, and for selecting the appropriate treatment technology. Publications Boller, M. & Deplazes, G. (1990) ‘Small Wastewater Treatment Plants in Switzerland’, Water, Science.& Technology Vol. 22, 3/4, 1-8. Schudel, P. & Boller, M. (1990) ‘Onsite Wastewater Treatment with Intermittent Buried Filters’, Wat. Sci. Tech. Vol. 22, 3/4, 93-100. Boller, M., Schwager, A., Eugster, J., & Mottier, V. (1993) ‘Dynamic Behaviour of Intermittent Buried Filters’, Wat. Sci. Tech., Vol. 28, No. 10, 99 - 107.

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Schwager, A.& Boller, M. (1997) ‘Transport Phenomena in Intermittent Filters’, Wat. Sci. Tech. Vol. 35, No. 6, 13-20. Boller, M. (1997).’ ‘Small Wastewater Treatment Plants - A Challenge for Wastewater Engineers’, Wat. Sci. Tech. Vol. 35, No. 6, 1-12. Deplazes, G., Boller, M. , & Vioget, P. (1995) ‘Swiss Guidelines for Small Wastewater Treatment Plants’. Kleinkläranlagen, Richtlinie des VSA, Zürich. 51. Ecocentre Schattweid Retention basins with/without Typha Photos: M.Hieber Maeggi Hieber / Brigitte Zuest Ecocentre Schwattweid CH-6114 Steinhuserberg Ph: +41 (0) 41 490 1793 Fax: +41 (0) 41 490 4075 hieber@schattweid.ch zuest@schattweid.ch www.schattweid.ch The sanitation system at the Ecocentre consists of urine-separating, dry composting toilets, and constructed reedbeds (soil filters) for greywater and urine treatment. Long-running and diverse research projects have been conducted on the soil filter reedbeds and the results published. A number of research projects are being conducted with the aim of reducing the nutrient load, in agricultural runoff, entering waterways. Retention ponds, with and without aquatic plants ie Typhus, have been built to monitor the fate and output of phosphorus and nitrates, and to buffer flood events. Composting toilets are commercially available through the Ecocentre. Publications Billeter, R., Zuest, B. & Schoenborn, A. (1998) ‘Constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment in Switzerland’. In: Constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment in Europe. (eds.) Vymazal, J., Brix, H., Cooper, P.F., Green, M.B., Haberl, R. pp 261-287.Backhuys Publishers, Leiden. Schoenborn, A., Zuest, B. & Underwood, E. (1996) ‘Long term performance of the sand-plant-filter Schattweid (Switzerland)’. 5th Internat. Conference on Wetland Systems for Water Pollution Control, Vienna Sept. 1996. Wyss, P. & Zuest, B. (2000) Sustainable wastewater treatment with soil filters. SKAT, St.Gallen. To order: Intermediate Technology Publications, Ltd. 103-105 Southampton Row, London WC 1B 4HH, UK.

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U.S.A. Percentage of households on on-site and decentralised systems – 25 % (~ 85 million people) Highlight: Centralised management of decentralised systems in Tennessee designed, installed and operated by On-site Systems Inc. 52. Ecological Engineering Group, LLC Greywater Wash Garden Photo: S.West David Del Porto Ecological Engineering Group, LLC PO Box 1313 Concord MA 01742, USA Ph: +1 978 369 9440 Fax: +1 978 369 2484 info@ecological-engineering.com www.ecological-engineering.com Carol Steinfeld PO BOX 1330 50 Beharrell Street Concord, MA 01742 USA Ph: +1 978 318 7033 Fax: +1 978 760 0034 carolstein@aol.com www.carol-steinfeld.com Washwater Garden™ System Tropical plants in greywater Wash Garden Photo: S.West When the residents of a house, adjacent to environmentally sensitive wetlands near the township of Montague MA, needed to upgrade their sewage system David Del Porto designed a zero emission ‘Washwater Garden™’ system for the greywater and a four batch dry composting system for the toilets. The Washwater Garden™ system is an indoor garden similar to a sewage treatment reedbed, except that the sand and gravel is planted with tropical species ie bamboo and banana. An extra room was built onto the house to accommodate the Washwater Garden™ greenhouse. Extra filters were added to filter grease from the kitchen sink, lint from the washing machine and the greywater influent just prior to flowing into the pipe network throughout the Washwater Garden™ tropical garden. Zero discharge of greywater from the glasshouse is achieved through a regulated dosing regime which ensures that the effluent is either consumed or transpired by the plants or evaporated from the soil. The Washwater Garden™ greenhouse has the added advantage of keeping the house warmer in winter. A number of the bamboo leaves were brown or yellow, which may indicate that the plants need

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more nitrogen. An additional component to the system may be to install urine separating toilets and divert the urine to the greywater collection tank. There was no sewage odour in the greenhouse, indeed the residents frequently utilise the Washwater Garden™ greenhouse as a sunroom where they sit and have morning tea and enjoy their indoor garden. Other Washwater and wastewater (combined black and greywater from septic tanks) gardens are designed as outdoor landscapes with plants selected for their hardiness and high utilisation rate of water and nutrients. The new term for such design practices is “Phytoremediation”. www.ecological-engineering.com/phytorem.html Publications: Del Porto, David & Steinfeld, Carol (2000) The Composting Toilet System Book: a practical guide to choosing, planning and maintaining composting toilet systems, a water-saving, pollution-preventing alternative. The Center for Ecological Pollution Prevention, Concord MA, ISBN 0966678303. (Revised and updated 2002) Steinfeld, Carol (2003) Liquid Gold: a short history of urine use (and safe ways to use it to grow plants). ISBN 0 9666783 1 1 Performance standards such as those developed by Nordic SWAN http://www.ecolabel.no/pdf/052e.pdf and ANSI/NSF http://www.nsf.org/ such as Standards 40 and 41 for wastewater technologies, can assist regulators in the approval of ecological sewerage systems. Training Courses: 24/25 March 2003 Tuition $820.00 Executive Education Seminars > Design, Planning, and Technologies http://www.gsd.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/exec_ed/details.cgi?offering_id=57 Building Green: Water Reuse in Site Design Concepts of green architecture and sustainable landscape architecture, though once marginalized in the design professions, are now regarded as acceptable and indeed even essential elements in the mitigation and prevention of environmental problems. One sign of this important and exciting shift is the growing trend among architects and landscape architects to take advantage of LEEDTM (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building credits. This trend arises in part from the recognition that one of the most pressing environmental concerns of the next decade will likely be droughts and the need to conserve and reuse water. This two-day seminar focuses on integrating architectural and landscape techniques of water conservation and innovative reuse that are suitable for individual development sites. Day one provides an overview of the progressive changes in the way stormwater is managed. Following an introduction to the "start at the source" strategy for decentralized hydrological control, participants examine concepts pertaining to green eco-roofs and rain gardens. Topics to be presented include rooftop fields, stormwater planters, infiltration gardens, landscape bioretention swales, and vegetative filters. Day two offers an overview of strategies for tightening the hydrological cycle, followed by a detailed presentation of innovative approaches to water harvesting and wastewater treatment. Solar aquatics treatment facilities, composting and urine-diverting toilets, green walls, wastewater and washwater gardens, and artificial aquifers are covered.

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Case histories of sustainable design that successfully deal with rainwater and wastewater reuse are provided, as well as recommendations for future research, development, and marketing opportunities. Examples of construction plans and engineering specifications are offered. Upon completion, participants will understand the basic technical requirements for constructing stormwater, washwater, and wastewater reuse systems for a variety of different development scenarios. COURSE INSTRUCTORS David Del Porto, director of The Ecological Engineering Group, Concord, MA. David is the founder and principal designer for the Ecological Engineering Group, a consulting firm specializing in ecological engineering, planning, management, and design for residential, commercial, and community projects, with a specialty in water/energy conservation, stormwater and wastewater reuse for irrigation, flushing toilet, and evaporative air conditioning. He is also a founder of the nonprofit Center for Ecological Pollution Prevention. Robert France, PhD, is an environmental scientist with over 20 years' experience in human alterations to water resources. France is an associate professor of landscape ecology at the Harvard Design School, where he has taught courses since 1977. He has consulted on numerous wetland creation projects and river restoration master plans. His books include Wetland Design (W. W. Norton, 2002), Deep Immersion (Green Frigate Books, 2002), and the edited volumes Handbook of Water Sensitive Planning and Design (Lewis Publishers, 2002), Reflecting Heaven (Houghton Mifflin, 2001), and Profitably Soaked (Green Frigate Books, 2002). In 2002, he was appointed science director of the Center for Technology and Environment, a research initiative at the Harvard Design School. Thomas Liptan is a registered landscape architect who works as an environmental specialist for the City of Portland, OR, Bureau of Environmental Services, Sustainable Design and Development Program. In Portland, he inspired research and development of new design techniques such as eco-roofs, stormwater planters, landscape infiltration gardens, and nonpotable water sources. He provides ecological and economical site and building design assistance using low-impact development techniques. Liptan is coauthor of a chapter in Handbook of Water Sensitive Planning and Design (Lewis Publishers, 2002). 53. Aquapoint Mark Lubbers Mark Wilder Vice President, Business Development Aquapoint International Aquapoint, Inc. The Oaks, ‘Moons Hill’ 241 Duchaine Boulevard, Frensham New Bedford, MA 02745-1209, USA Surrey, GU 10 3AW, England Ph: +1 508 998 7577 Ph: + 44 (0) 1252 792688 Fax: +1 508 998 7177 Fax: +44 (0) 1252 794068 mlubbers@aquapoint.com bioclere@compuserve.com www.aquapoint.com www.aquapoint.com Bioclere Trickling Filter The Bioclere is a modified trickling filter which was developed in Finland in the early 1960’s and is now used extensively throughout Europe, the Middle East and the United States for secondary treatment of wastewater and the conversion and reduction of nitrogen. A modified

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Bioclere for precipitation of phosphorus is frequently added to the treatment train. There are more than 10,000 Bioclere installations worldwide. Installation range in size from 0.8 to 80 KL per day. The Bioclere is constructed of insulated and UV resistant fiberglass or plastic. Modular in nature the tanks may be installed in parallel to accommodate larger flows or in series to achieve higher levels of treatment. The trickling filter is a fixed film aerobic process in which microorganisms attach to a highly permeable media creating a biological filter or slime layer through which wastewater is trickled allowing organic matter to be absorbed into the slime layer. Designed properly this filter is self-purging and maintenance free. The stability of the process, which is characteristic of its trickling filter heritage, and the simplicity of design minimizes the life cycle operating and maintenance costs generally associated with the secondary treatment of wastewater. Typical installations include individual homes, residential clusters, malls, nursing homes, schools, supermarkets, restaurants, gas stations, golf courses, hotels and small communities. Littleton Nursing Home Bioclere Treatment Plant Photo: S.West A 180 bed nursing home at Littleton, MA produces 50 KL of sewage per day. An anoxic holding tank, four Bioclere Filters (2x2 in parallel), a submerged ANOX fixed film reactor for denitrification, a UV disinfection unit and infiltration trenches were installed. Wastewater is sprayed from six fixed spray nozzles at dosing intervals of 8 minutes on and 3 minutes off, over short pieces of corrugated plastic (PVC) media tubes in the 4 m deep Bioclere tanks. The tubes act as substrate for biofilm to grow and consume the organic matter in the wastewater and convert ammonium to nitrate. The tanks are imbedded into the ground with the top just protruding above the surface or slightly higher so that only a short ladder is needed to access the hatch at the top. A clarifier at the base of each tank settles out most solids before the treated effluent is recirculated back to the anoxic tank and polished by the final anoxic filter to complete denitrification. The final effluent then passes through the UV filter before being discharged to infiltration trenches on adjacent land. The system is regularly monitored and serviced by Aquapoint staff. Camp Thoreau, Concord, MA is an indoor / outdoor sports complex & camp producing 70 KL of sewage per day in summer. The treatment train consists of a septic tank, four Bioclere tanks (2x2 in parallel) and a 4 m deep cylindrical anoxic sand filter. The sand filter is a bottom fed, upflow filter, i.e. wastewater is forced up from the bottom of the tank. A ½ hp

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compressor drives an airlift that continuously lifts and scours ‘dirty’ sand from the filter bottom to the top of the filter vessel. The biofilm slurry, is washed off the sand, and discharges over a reject weir to the primary settling tank. The clean sand drifts back down to the top of the sand column. This self-cleaning submerged sand filter denitrifies the effluent before it is discharged to a subsurface soil absorption system.

Camp Thoreau Bioclere Tanks Photo: S.West Aquapoint, Inc. USA has recently expanded its capacity to include new technologies and has instituted ‘Aquapoint International’ to design, manufacture and deliver wastewater treatment systems worldwide. 54. Lombardo Associates, Inc. Nitrex denitrification unit Photo: P.Lombardo Pio Lombardo Lombardo Associates Inc. 49 Edge Hill Rd Newtown, MA 02467 USA Ph: +1 617 964 2924 Fax: +1 617 332 5477 pio@LombardoAssociates.com www.LombardoAssociates.com Lombardo Associates, Inc. has engineered over $200 million of innovative decentralized wastewater systems using the STEG/STEP approach, sand filters and constructed wetlands, as well as individual and cluster systems. Pio Lombardo is currently writing a manual for the US EPA on the “Evaluation of Approaches to Planning and Management of Cluster Wastewater Collection and Treatment Systems” which will be complete in late 2003. Lombardo Associates, Inc. has also teamed up as the US partner with the University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada for the US application of the University's patented low cost, passive technologies Nitrex TM for nitrogen removal, and Phosphex TM and RID TM for phosphorus removal. The Nitrex TM system has produced TN levels less than 3 ppm, the Phosphex TM system has produced Total P levels of less than 0.07 ppm, and the RID TM system has produced Total P levels of less than 0.100 ppm.

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55. Ocean Arks International Restorer Technology cleaning Chinese canal Website Photo Dr John Todd, President Michael Shaw, Executive Director Suite 1, 176 Battery Street Burlington, VT 05401 USA Ph: +1 802 860 0011 Fax: +1 802 860 0022 info@oceanarks.org www.oceanarks.org Restorer Technology - Ecologically Engineered Wastewater Treatment Systems Ocean Arks International no longer uses the term ‘Living Machine’ since Iasis Ltd (see section 61) acquired the Living Machine™ trademark in 1999. Ocean Arks have now developed a new advanced biological treatment technology called ‘Restorer Technology’. Burlington VT Living Machine Photo: S.West

In 1995 a Living Machine was built in the grounds of the South Burlington STP as a research and demonstration plant with funding from the US EPA. The Living Machine treated 10% of the sewage entering the municipal plant ie 300 KL (0.3 ML) per day (equivalent to 1600 households). The Living Machine system consisted of two treatment trains of nine 3 m deep aerated tanks filled with sewage. The first tank aerates the anaerobic municipal sewage. A biofilter sat on top of the first

tank to adsorb any foul odours. Tanks 2 to 5 were open and contain aerated wastewater, plants which tolerate having ‘wet feet’, fish, snails, algae, zooplankton and phytoplankton. This complex aquatic ecosystem enhanced the treatment process. Snails are efficient at consuming sludge in tanks. Over the initial 4 years a horticulturalist experimented with over 400 species of plants to find the most efficient and robust species to clean the wastewater. Eleven tropical wetland species were the best performers. Plants were monitored for their:

• hardiness in different concentrations of wastewater • pest resistance • ease of propagation and maintenance • response to toxic shock.

Tank 6 was a clarifier with a cone shaped base. The small amount of residual sludge was pumped back to Tank 1. Tanks 7 to 9, the ‘Ecological Fluidized Beds’ promoted nitrification and denitrification. The final effluent quality was:

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o BOD <10 mg/L o TSS <10 mg/L o TN <10 mg/L o TKN <5 mg/L o TP <3 mg/L o Fc <2,000 CFU/100 mL

Operating costs were US$1,000 per month. As this Living Machine was a research installation at an STP site, the treated effluent was returned to the South Burlington Municipal Sewage Treatment Plant. There are approximately 180 Living Machines around the world, some of them treating sewage and others treating food processing waste. The only Australian plant is located at the Masterfoods factory at Wyong. 56. Stone Environmental Inc. Warren School Orenco Textile Biofilters Photo: M.Clark Bruce Douglas (now works at Questa EC*) Mary Clark, Project Scientist Carl Etnier, Project Scientist 535 Stone Cutters Way Montpelier, Vermont 05602 USA Ph: + 1 802 229 4541 Fax: +1 802 229 5417 cetnier@stone-env.com www.stone-env.com Stone Environmental Inc. (SEI) design, coordinate and facilitate community participation workshops, community scale sewerage treatment systems, information management systems and water resources impact assessments. Integrating Decentralized and Centralized Systems SEI has a good reputation for solving all facets of difficult wastewater management problems - social, economic, environmental and political - especially where towns, counties, and states struggle with multiple challenges ie growing populations, suburban sprawl, unregulated onsite systems, threats to human health and environmentally sensitive areas, and the inefficiencies of paper-based management systems. SEI has demonstrated that for many townships, there are many other viable options apart from constructing new or expanding the centralized sewer systems. This is especially true for areas with a high percentage of suburban and rural residents. In the USA approximately 30 percent of residential wastewater is managed by onsite sub-surface systems. In the northeastern US, many towns rely completely on onsite systems. SEI evaluates options and develops management programs for decentralized onsite, cluster, and innovative/alternative systems, along with centralized sewers. The goal is to create cost-effective, safe, and manageable systems that meet the current and future needs of residents, utilities and regulators.

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Information Management for 5 to 500,000 Systems SEI offers a comprehensive and robust proprietary Integrated Wastewater Information Management System (IWIMS). IWIMS is a powerful database that allows users to manage data from thousands of distinct wastewater systems. It can support multiple users on a local network or over the Internet using a Web browser. Installation of Warren School textile bio-filters Photo: M.Clark *Bruce Douglas now works at: Questa Engineering Corporation 319 East Sola Street, Unit B Santa Barbara CA 93101 USA Ph: +1 805 966 2774 Fax: +1 805 966 2708 bdouglas@questaec.com www.questaec.com 57. Cornell University Dr William Jewell Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering Cornell University 204 Riley-Robb Hall Ithaca, NY 14853-5701 USA Ph: +1 607 255 4533 Fax: +1 607 255 4080 wjj1@cornell.edu www.cornell.edu Dr. Jewell has developed an anaerobic sewage treatment that works at low temperatures with short hydraulic retention times (several hours). His anaerobic work coupled with natural systems has led to the concept of "resource-recovery" wastewater treatment (see reference below). The advantages of these anaerobic systems are the production of methane which can be beneficially used, no sludge production, low energy consumption and effluent quality of between 10 and 30 mg/L of BOD. The effluent is then passed through a hydroponic system, such as the NFT (nutrient film technique), for nutrient management. Dr Jewell’s present emphasis is on applying the resource-recovery approach to animal waste management. Jewell, W. J. (1999) ‘Resource-Recovery Animal Waste Treatment : Dairy System’. American Society of Agricultural Engineers, Paper Number 994025. Presented at the International Meeting. Toronto, Canada. July, 1999. Jewell, W. J. (1997) ‘Resource-Recovery Wastewater Treatment With Biological Systems’. In: Workshop on Sustainable Municipal Waste Water Treatment Systems. pp. 67-101. A. Balkema, H. Aalbers, and E. Heijndermans (eds). ETC. Leusden, Netherlands. Jewell, W. J. (1994) ‘Resource-Recovery Wastewater Treatment’. American Scientist. 82. 366-375. July-Aug. 1994.

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58. Onsite Systems, Inc. Orenco Recirculating Sand Filter Photo: S.West Charles Pickney Robert Pickney Onsite Systems Inc. 7638 River Road Pike Nashville, TN 37209-5733 USA Ph: +1 615 356 7294 onsite@mindspring.com Onsite Systems is a private water utility in Tennessee. The company specialises in designing and managing decentralised sewerage schemes for townships, sub-divisions, schools and commercial premises. The Tennessee state government regulates the company and determines the price that the company can charge its customers for the sewerage service. As of January 2003, Onsite Systems Inc. is providing decentralised sewerage services to over 30 communities across the state of Tennessee. The Pickney brothers own several vertically integrated companies that:

manufacture watertight concrete septic tanks design on-site and cluster system sewerage treatment systems furnish products for the decentralised sewerage industry construct the sewerage schemes manage, monitor and service the sewerage schemes perform water quality tests train sanitation professionals in best practices.

In new residential subdivisions and commercial systems, developers pay for the installation of the sewerage schemes. The treatment systems currently in use for these sewage systems are facultative ponds and Orenco recirculating sand filters. Vericom remote monitoring system Photo: S.West

Monitoring and management was facilitated by the use of Orenco remote monitoring units coupled to the septic tank and effluent filter. The data logger continuously monitored the flow rates and downloaded the information via the household phone line at 3 am each morning. However, if a problem were to occur an alarm would be triggered immediately and the relevant service person would be automatically paged. In many instances problems are responded to and corrected without the homeowner being aware that a problem had occurred.

In another new subdivision, the septic tanks were connected to collection lines or reticulated pipes throughout the subdivision. The pipes conveyed the effluent to a pumping station which conveyed it to the treatment facility, in this case, an Orenco sand filter. The pumping

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station was equipped with a data logger that continuously monitored the flow rates and downloaded the information through a phone line. The Pickney Bros. utility company, Onsite Systems Inc., provides sewerage service to many residential sub-divisions. The service fee set by the state of Tennessee for these developments, ranges from US$30 to $35 per month. This fee, which households pays to the wastewater utility, covers the centralised management service, the cost of repairs and spare parts, yearly inspection and periodic pumpout and desludging. At another estate of 200 homes in Ashland City, every eight homes were connected to a large communal septic tank with a large effluent filter. The effluent from the septic tanks then flowed by gravity through small diameter watertight, PVC pipes to one pump which conveyed the effluent to the centralised city sewer system. The city of Nashville, Tennessee has installed Orenco STEG (Septic Tank Effluent Gravity) and STEP (Septic Tank Effluent Pump) watertight reticulation to seventeen properties in the Forrest Hills area. The city had estimated a cost of $2.25 million to serve the area with municipal sewerage. By using a watertight effluent collection system, the cost to the city to put the mains collection line along the streets was US$83,000. Homeowners each paid approximately $4,500 for the interceptor (septic) tank, pump and control system (telemetry) at their home. The total cost to the city and homeowners was approximately US$160,000. The telemetry is the key to monitoring and maintaining the watertight nature of the system.

Recirculating Sand Filter, Pegram TN Photo: S.West The township of Pegram, TN with 100 homes, a school and a small shopping centre had a community sewerage scheme installed which cost < US$1 million. The school, businesses and each house have a septic tank with Orenco effluent filter and a pump. Effluent from the tanks is pumped 2.5 km through watertight low pressure pipes to a 600 m² Orenco Recirculating Sand Filter. The township generates 120 KL per day which is held in a collection tank below the sand filter between recirculation and dosing. The wastewater is finely spray dosed onto the sand filter over a 15 minute cycle (4 minutes spray and 11 minutes rest). A splitter valve transfers 20% of the effluent in the collection tank to a UV filter. The final effluent is then stored in another holding tank before being distributed onto an adjacent paddock through Netafim irrigation pipes. The effluent quality is 3 to 5 mg/L of BOD and TSS.

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59. Orenco Systems Inc. Orenco AdvanTex textile filter pod Photo: Orenco Eric Ball Vice-Pres., Product Development Orenco Systems Inc. 814 Airway Ave Sutherlin, Oregon, 97479 Ph: + 1 541 459 4449 Fax: + 1 541 459 2884 eball@orenco.com www.orenco.com Right across the United States wastewater professionals praised the high performance and economic, social and environmental value of Orenco’s sewage treatment systems i.e. recirculating sand filters and a textile filters (AdvanTex). The AdvanTex cloth, a non-woven ‘hairy’ synthetic material, hangs on rods within a compact fibreglass tank that has a footprint of only 1.8 square metres for a single household. Tanks in a series or other configuration can treat a cluster of houses or a small village. Sixty-eight spray nozzles pulse dose the upper-most folds of the cloth in a single household unit. Wastewater flows down the sides of the cloth and is cleaned by the microbes growing on the protruding hairs. Water is recirculated 5 times from a collection well at the base of the tank. The anaerobic condition in the collection well provides denitrification treatment, significantly reducing the level of total nitrogen in the effluent from 40 to 70%. AdvanTex treatment system at Snow Rd, Alabama. Photo: Volkert Engineering

Effluent quality is remarkably high for a system only costing a few thousand US dollars. With a performance guarantee of less than 10 mg/L BOD and TSS (typically 3 to 5 mg/L) the effluent is eminently suitable for UV disinfection and subsequent household and garden reuse. The unit features timer operation providing flow modulation and surge control, thus ensuring consistent treatment with little generation of sludge. Other features include a watertight tank and pipe system, that eliminates

the problem of groundwater infiltration and wastewater leakage and ensures odourless operation. This compact, reliable, quiet, low energy, low maintenance system is ideal for small sites, poor soils, onsite system upgrades, new residential and commercial developments and islands.

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60. Natural Systems International, LLC Mandeville Wetland systems Photo: M.Ogden Michael Ogden Founding Director, Principal Engineer Natural Systems International Suite 102, 811 St. Michael’s Drive Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505 Ph: +1 505 988 7453 Fax: +1 505 988 3720 nsi@cybermesa.com www.natsys-inc.com Natural Systems International, LLC (NSI) is a Santa Fe firm founded in 1989 with the goal of applying low cost, energy efficient natural systems to the problems of wastewater and stormwater. NSI provides comprehensive specialized engineering services in the area of

biological wastewater treatment systems utilising the natural ecosystems in ponds (wastewater lagoons), marshes (constructed wetlands), prairies, grasslands (land application/irrigation), woodlands and forests (irrigation). NSI’s primary focus is providing engineering and construction management services for small community (< 50,000 people) wastewater treatment systems, storm water treatment systems, water reuse projects, and water shed and riparian restoration projects.

Mandeville, LA gravel trickling filter Photo: M.Ogden The NSI group is a multi-disciplinary association of professionals with offices in Sante Fe NM, Chevy Chase MD, Columbus OH, and San Ramon CA, who are experienced in the planning, design and construction of natural treatment systems. The full-time staff of NSI consists of registered professional engineers (representing over 65 years of project experience), an environmental /landscape designer and CAD drafting and engineering technicians. NSI recognises the strengths provided by regional experience and often consults with regional wetland experts concerning specific opportunities and limitations that may exist at any particular location. Hansons, Chris & Betty Lakes Wetland System Photo: M.Ogden

Since 1989, NSI has designed, developed studies, specified and observed construction on more that 500 projects varying in size from 1.8 KL/day (450 gpd) to 16 ML/day (4 million gpd). Placing extra emphasis on both creativity and economics, NSI specialises in the implementation of natural treatment system designs using native plant species to treat municipal, commercial, residential, industrial, mine tailings, land leachate and agricultural wastewater as well as storm run-off.

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NSI has completed more that 500 projects in 36 US states, Canada, Mexico and China, and have also worked with Native Americans including Shoshone, Arapaho, Navajo, Lakota Sioux and the Tesuque Pueblo. Publication by Craig Campbell & Michael Ogden (1999) Constructed Wetlands in the Sustainable Landscape John Wiley & Sons, NY ISBN 0471107204 The Living Machine Photo: LMI 61. Iasis Systems Group David Austin Director of Research and Development Iasis Systems Group / The Living Machine™ 125a La Posta Road 8018 NDCBU Taos, New Mexico 87571 Ph: +1 505 751 9481 Fax: +1 505 751 9483 davida@goodwater.com info@livingmachines.com www.livingmachines.com Since Iasis Ltd acquired Living Technologies, Inc. from Ocean Arks International (see section 53.) in 2000, a new company ‘Living Machines, Inc.’ (LMI) has been formed to develop and produce Living Machines™. Aquatic System Photo: LMI Modern Living Machines™ employ shallow reactors about 2 metres in depth. The ‘traditional’ Living Machine™ can be described as an Aquatic Root Zone - Integrated Fixed Film Activated Sludge (ARZ-IFFAS) treatment process. Research conducted by LMI in 1999 established that the principle role of plants in the ARZ-IFFAS process is to hold floc temporarily. The effect of plants on the treatment process is to enhance total nitrogen removal, retard washout, enhance treatment stability and reduce solids, liquid and by-products yield. The traditional Living Machine™ is an enhancement of the extended aeration process for small flows. Living Machines, Inc. has engaged in an aggressive and well-funded R&D effort since 2000. The products that have emerged from this effort are: 1. Aquatic Root Zone - Fixed Film technology (Patent Pending). Unlike traditional Living Machines™ this technology has no clarifier and no MLSS. Moving bed bioreactors are incorporated into hydroponic reactors (aerated basins with plants growing on fixed racks at the surface). A demonstration project, set up in Taos, New Mexico, has achieved the design goals of tertiary treatment. 2. Integrated vertical flow, tidal marsh system (Patent Pending). This technology integrates ponds with recirculating flood and drain marsh cells arranged in series. The prototype

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consistently achieves tertiary treatment at loading rates at least twice that of many conventional constructed wetlands. 62. Bio-Microbics, Inc. FAST® wastewater treatment systems Website Diagram Raymond Peat Vice President, Marketing Bio-Microbics, Inc. 8450 Cole Parkway Shawness, Kansas 66227, USA Ph: +1 913 422 0707 Fax: +1 913 422 0808 rpeat@biomicrobics.com www.biomicrobics.com Bio-Microbics manufactures FAST® wastewater treatment systems for single households, cluster and community systems, restaurants and other high strength commercial applications. FAST® is a combined suspended and attached growth aerobic bioreactor treatment system. The system is pre-engineered and modular, with individual module treatment capacity ranging from 6 to 150 EP. Multiple modules are used for larger flows. The FAST process was originally developed as a Marine Sanitation Device nearly 30 years ago. Thousands of FAST systems are installed around the world, including the newest aircraft carrier for the US Navy. The basic residential FAST system consists of fixed-film media submerged in the second compartment of a two-chambered septic tank. Air is supplied to the FAST module located in the second chamber by a remote air blower, which may use between 2,000 and 3,000 KWH of electricity per year. Modes of operation of the FAST system include automatic, passive recirculation of nitrified wastewater to the primary settling chamber for denitrification and intermittent use of the blower to reduce electricity consumption and increase denitrification. Effluent quality is consistently high, with treated BOD5/TSS levels often 10 mg/L or less along with a 70% reduction in total nitrogen. Residential cluster systems are numerous in all regions of the USA. Two examples are Bayview Township (57 homes and three commercial facilities) on the eastern shore of Virginia and Cottage Glen subdivision (77 dwelling units) in Ellison Bay, Wisconsin. RetroFAST® wastewater treatment systems can be installed into existing septic tanks to enhance performance or to rehabilitate biologically failed septic systems. The dissolved oxygen in the treated effluent promotes the growth of aerobic soil bacteria which digests the clogging bio-film mat in the soil infiltration trench. Bio-Microbics, Inc. also manufactures SaniTEE® effluent filters, BioSTEP® effluent pumping systems and BioSTORM® stormwater treatment systems. Bio-Microbics, Inc. is an affiliated company to Smith & Loveless, Inc.. Related publication: US EPA Guidelines for Management of Onsite & Decentralised Wastewater Systems, December 2000.

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63. Zenon Zeeweed 1000 Website Photo Mark Murphy Regional Manager, Australasia 3661 Campbell St Kansas City, MO 6109 USA Ph: +1 816 756 3929 Fax: +1 816 756 3344 mmurphy@zenon.com www.zenon.com Zenon manufactures membrane bio-reactor tertiary treatment plants suitable for clusters of homes, subdivisions, towns, schools, recreational facilities, commercial and industrial sites, and larger regional sewerage systems. The Cycle-Let® Wastewater Treatment and Recycling System provides high quality effluent for small to medium scale situations. The treatment train commences with a trash rack pre-treatment unit. Sewage then passes through an aerated suspended growth (activated sludge) chamber, before being drawn through a ZenoGem® bio-reactor containing ZeeWeed® hollow fibre membranes. The ZenoGem® system has a small footprint, combining clarification, aeration and sludge digestion in one treatment unit. The effluent can be further treated in an activated carbon unit, where the removal of colour or odour is required, and disinfected in a UV unit before being beneficially recycled. The final effluent typically has a concentration of less than 5 mg/L BOD, 5 mg/L TSS, 5 mg/L TN, 1 mg/L TP and <2.2 cfu/100 mL of Faecal coliform. Zeeweed membrane tank Web photo

In New Jersery, three subdivisions (Jackson Square 50 m³/d, Brass Castle 80 m³/d and Hidden Meadows 200 m³/d) are serviced by Cycle-Let® treatment systems utilising the ZenoGem® membrane bio-reactor. A large apartment complex, Oakwood Village Apartments (700 m³/d) in Flanders, NJ was ungraded with a Cycle-Let® system when the existing undersized package plant failed.

64. University of California, Davis AdvanTex research at Davis STP Photo: H.Leverenz Dr George Tchobanoglous & Harold Leverenz Department of Civil / Environmental Engineering University of California, Davis 1 Shields Ave Davis, California 95616 USA Ph: +1 530 752 3448 Fax: +1 530 753 7872 gtchobanoglous@ucdavis.edu hlleverenz@ucdavis.edu www.ucdavis.edu

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Harold Leverenz is conducting a Ph.D research project at the Davis sewage treatment plant to test the treatment characteristics of (1) three textile filters (AdvanTex manufactured by Orenco Systems Inc) under different loading regimes, (2) an aeration system placed in a septic tank, (3) an aeration system placed in a septic tank and inoculated with selected organisms and enzymes to enhance treatment (Pirana www.pirana.biz), and (4) a standard septic system to serve as a control. Experiments are also being conducted to evaluate each

(pre-treatment) system for (1) the ability to recover failed septic absorption test cells, (2) the fate of nutrients, pathogens, and chemicals that effect the endocrine system, (3) how pretreatment effects water quality after discharge to the environment (to be measured in soil lysimeters), and (4) how loading and distribution effect wastewater evaporation and infiltration (also to be measured in soil lysimeters).

Research at Davis Photo: H.Leverenz Publications: Leverenz, H., Darby, J. & Tchobanoglous, G. (2002) Review of Technologies for the Onsite Treatment of Wastewater in California, A report prepared for the California State Water Resources Control Board, Centre for Environmental and Water Resources Engineering, University of California, Davis. Report No. 2002-2. August 2002. Leverenz, H., Darby, J. & Tchobanoglous, G. (2000) Evaluation of Textile Filters for the Treatment of Septic Tank Effluent Centre for Environmental and Water Resources Engineering, University of California, Davis. Report No. 2000-1. October 2000. Crites, R. & Tchobanoglous, G. (1998) Small and Decentralised Wastewater Management Systems, WCB McGraw-Hill, pp 1083, ISBN 0071167846

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Conferences and Useful Organisations I also had the good fortune to attend the National Onsite Wastewater Recycling Association (NOWRA) Conference in Grand Rapids City, Michigan in October 2000. The strands on management and community participation in decision-making were particularly interesting and useful. NOWRA conferences are run annually - www.nowra.org The American Society of Agricultural Engineers (ASAE) www.asae.org holds a conference dedicated to individual and small community sewerage every 3 years ie Sacramento, California in March 2004 and Fort Worth, Texas 11-14 March 2001. Conference Proceedings are published - ISBN 1892769182. The International Ecological Engineering Society is at the forefront of sustainable, small to medium scale and ‘appropriate’ sewerage technologies and holds conferences every couple of years. Lincoln University, Christchurch, New Zealand from 26-29 November 2001. www.iees.ch Ecological Sanitation Conference ‘Ecosan’ “Closing the Loop” 7-11 April 2003, Lübeck, Germany www.gtz.de/ecosan/symposium-2003.html Water Environment Federation www.wef.org Although the Water Environment Federation primarily serves the needs of organisations and professionals involved in designing, installing, operating and maintaining large centralised sewerage systems, one of the strands of their annual conference in dedicated to small community and natural treatment systems. WEFTECH holds annual conferences. The World Water Forum conference is held every 3 years www.worldwaterforum.net The National Small Flows Clearinghouse (US EPA) www.nesc.wvu.edu/nsfc In Australia & New Zealand On-site ’03 Conference Future Directions for On-site Systems: Best Management Practice 30 September – 3 October 2003 Armidale, NSW, Australia. www.lanfaxlabs.com.au/onsite03/index.htm On-site ’05 Conference – Sept 2005 in Armidale, NSW www.lanfaxlabs.com.au NOWRA / IWA - Small Scale Water and Wastewater Treatment Systems Conference Fremantle, WA, Australia, 12 – 14 February 2004 conwes@congresswest.com.au www.iwahq.org.uk National On-Site Special Interest Group (NOSSIG), an interest group of the Australian Water Association (www.awa.asn.au), produces a quarterly newsletter, ‘NOSSIG News’. The editor is Tom Headley - theadl10@scu.edu.au . Membership of the on-site interest group is open to anyone. Dr Ian Gunn from Auckland University, New Zealand produces the quarterly newsletter ‘On-Site NewZ’ i.gunn@auckland.ac.uk

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APPENDIX A

CENTRALISED MANAGEMENT: THE KEY TO SUCCESSFUL ON-SITE SEWERAGE SERVICE

Sarah West, Sydney Water Corporation

On-site ’01 Conference, ‘Advancing Onsite Wastewater Systems’ Armidale, NSW, Australia, September 2001

http://www.lanfaxlabs.com.au/onsite01 Abstract A large percentage (10-80%) of on-site sewerage systems are failing, not just in Australia, but also overseas (Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment councils, pers. comm.. & USEPA 2000). In a 1997 Report to Congress the US EPA presented its findings on the state of on-site systems across the country and solutions for improving sewerage services. It was recognized that it is not simply that the technology is at fault, but that the equipment requires more professional maintenance than the householder is willing or able to provide. The US EPA found that for many communities, properly managed on-site systems or decentralized systems using on-site technology, could protect the environment and public health “over the long-term and do so at a lower cost than conventional systems” (EPA 2000). The US EPA has developed guidelines to support stakeholders to better manage on-site systems. The foundation is a five-tier management structure ranging from a simple inventory of the number and performance of on-site systems through to utility ownership and management of the systems. Centralized management of advanced on-site systems can achieve the same (or better) water quality levels as conventional municipal STPs, but with the added feature of being a local, more sustainable solution. Centrally managed watertight on-site systems utilizing advanced technology is the paradigm that has been adopted in the US to successfully service rural and suburban wastewater needs at an affordable cost. The technology has been embraced by private and public water utilities. Previously seen as alternatives, on-site and centralized sewerage are now viewed as a continuum of technologies under central management. Technology is now being selected for the situation where it best fits, and satisfies the triple bottom line of selected economic, environmental and social criteria. Keywords: centralized management, decentralized, on-site, sand filters, sewage treatment 1 Introduction Sewerage systems are failing. No matter whether they are centralized reticulated sewerage systems in cities and towns or individual household on-site systems, after 25 to 30 years these systems begin to fail and need repair and replacing. This is a global phenomenon. All countries, especially the developed countries, are grappling with this challenge of upgrading failing centralized and onsite sewerage systems. (Developing countries have a larger suite of sanitation challenges that will not be addressed in this paper). Coupled with this infrastructure need, is the realization that in order to create a sustainable future, we as a society need to improve the quality of our sewerage practices, reuse our effluent and promote an integrated catchment based, water cycle approach to water management. Many communities want a local sustainable and affordable solution to their sewage issues. On the social side many people in small rural communities do not want to be linked to a city sewerage service, they want to deal with their own waste and recycle what they can. On the

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economic side, providing centralized reticulated sewerage systems to outlying communities is very expensive. Estimates of $16,000 to $70,000 per household for the 4,912 lots in the 16 villages in Sydney Water’s seven Priority Sewerage Program (PSP) areas have been documented in the corresponding seven environmental impact statements. These figures only include the cost of supplying the sewerage pipeline to the front gate. It does not include the $1,000 to 3,000 (or more) for connection from the house to the pipeline in the street, nor does it include the pro-rata cost of the centralised treatment plant. Providing a sewerage service to these communities is subsidized, with the real cost being passed on to all Sydney Water’s ratepayers, thus increasing the cost of sewerage for everyone. In the USA an affordable solution has been found to upgrade failing on-site, and in some instances reticulated, sewerage systems and to service new housing developments. The solution includes installing technically advanced on-site sewage treatment systems for individual homes, or decentralized systems for clusters of homes, coupled with a centralized management service. Centralized management takes the responsibility for system monitoring and maintenance out of the hands of the householder. The householder, of course, still has responsibility for what goes down the sink. The key to providing good quality, affordable sewerage treatment is not the technology, it is service. Many wastewater treatment systems in the hands of the householder will eventually fail due to neglect, disdain or lack of expertise. Richard Otis (1998) explains the issue succinctly when he says “the problem is not that on-site systems are inadequate; it is that we have not accepted the fact that on-site systems are treatment plants that must be designed and maintained by qualified people”. 2 Discussion 2.1 1997 Report to Congress In 1993 Congress directed the US EPA to conduct an inventory of on-site systems across the country to determine the rate of failure, the degree of environmental and public health impact and to propose solutions to upgrading unsewered communities. Although the US EPA found that on average 25% of on-sites were failing on any one day, and discharging 4,000 ML of raw sewage into the environment, the subsequent 1997 Report to Congress stated “…decentralized [and on-site] systems, where properly managed, could protect water quality over the long term and do so at lower cost than conventional systems in many communities”. This endorsement of ‘properly managed’ on-site and cluster sewerage systems effectively legitimised the use of on-site technology. A paradigm shift of this magnitude does take time to become commonly accepted, but in many circles on-site technology is no longer seen as a temporary measure, the ‘poor cousin’ to centralized reticulated services. On-site technology is now viewed as a legitimate alternative to conventional sewerage where applicable. On-site and conventional sewerage, under centralized management, now form a range of technologies that are assessed to find the best solution. As Otis advises (1998) “if we are to successfully provide affordable wastewater facilities in unsewered communities, we must stop comparing the two alternatives as either / or options. … We must promote wastewater treatment alternatives as a continuum of technologies, under central management.” The 1997 Report to Congress also gave the ‘green light’ to the wastewater industry to invest more money and other resources into research and development, marketing and management services. 2.2 Smart Growth planning A flow-on effect from this shift in attitude toward on-site sewerage has been a change in land use planning. Statistics from the US EPA show that thirty-seven percent of all new housing

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developments are being serviced by on-site systems and decentralized sewerage services using on-site technology, and this percentage is growing (EPA 2000). This is not just in the poorer rural back blocks, many multi-million dollar homes are being serviced by professionally managed on-site systems. Statistics from the US EPA (2000) show that over 50% of on-site and decentralized (using on-site technology) sewerage services are in the cities and suburbs. A new paradigm in developing greenfield sites has emerged, called ‘Smart Growth Planning’. Smart Growth developments incorporate medium density housing with the express purpose of clustering homes together on small lots, leaving land available for parks and sporting fields and retaining natural habitat. Each home has a septic tank connected to a local treatment plant (decentralized) utilizing advanced on-site technology. The parks and sporting fields are built into the development for added amenity, increased real estate value and specifically to provide an opportunity for effluent reuse. The decentralized sewerage system is professionally managed. The trend is being ‘applauded’ by all concerned. The cost to install these decentralized systems is less than conventional sewerage, so developers are able to make more profit. Home buyers are willing to pay more for these homes because the established parks and sporting amenities, and adjacent natural bushland are highly valued, and they have a professionally managed local sewerage service without the inconvenience or risks associated with an infiltration trench in their backyards. In many instances private water utilities have been created to operate the sewerage management service for these developments. More recently, several public water authorities have commenced installing on-site and decentralized systems. 2.3 US EPA management guidelines To support and guide the wastewater industry and regulators in providing managed on-site sewerage services the US EPA has formulated five levels of management. The ‘Guidelines for Management of On-site / Decentralized Wastewater Systems’ (EPA 2000) lists the five levels as:

1. Systems inventory and awareness of maintenance requirements 2. Maintenance contracts 3. Operating permits 4. Utility operation and maintenance 5. Utility ownership and management

NSW already has Levels 1 and 2 in operation. Since 1998 councils throughout the state have been making an inventory of the on-site systems in their shire. The service contracts that householders have with aerated wastewater treatment systems (AWTS) and ‘Ecomax’ manufacturers or service providers constitute the second level of management. Level 3 are renewable and revocable permits issued to property owners who must ensure that they meet specific effluent quality limits in environmentally sensitive areas. Levels 4 and 5 are sewage management districts operated by private or public water utilities. The difference between Levels 4 and 5 is that at Level 4 the householder owns the sewerage equipment in their backyards, whereas at Level 5 the private or public water utility owns it. At both levels the utility operates a centralized management service that monitors and maintains the equipment and collects a monthly fee. The fee (US$25 - $30) is roughly equivalent to the monthly fee paid for conventional reticulated sewerage (US$30 - $35). The on-site management fee covers all monitoring and maintenance costs, the cost of repairs and pump-outs and in some cases the replacement cost of the equipment after 20 to 30 years. The householder no longer has to worry about large unexpected bills for the repair of a failed on-site system. The goal

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of the US EPA is that eventually all on-site sewerage systems will be centrally managed at Level 4 or 5 by sanitation professionals. 2.4 Watertight sewerage systems In order for water utilities to operate a financially viable on-site management business, on-site technology has had to advance to function efficiently with minimal failure rates. This has meant a paradigm shift in the configuration of components of on-site systems and a quantum leap in quality. The key element to this paradigm shift is watertightness. Charles Pickney (On-site Systems Inc) of Tennessee said his family would not be in the business of running a private water utility if they could not guarantee that all systems were watertight. That is, watertight septic tank and watertight PVC (or polyethylene) pipes incorporating heat welded joints. This aspect, eliminates all possibility of infiltration of stormwater and groundwater, and exfiltration of sewage – the factors which cause so much system failure and environmental and public health risk. In a decentralized sewerage system this watertight feature eliminates the need for ‘over-designing’ the pipe work and treatment plant to accommodate wet weather flows. This greatly reduces capital expenditure due to the reduced size of pipes, trenches and the treatment plant. Conventional centralized sewage treatment plants are designed to take 4 to 6 times the dry weather flow. 2.5 Key elements of an efficient on-site sewerage system The following list gives an overview of the key elements needed to provide an extremely reliable on-site treatment system:

1. watertight septic tank 2. septic tank effluent filter 3. watertight small diameter PVC or polyethylene pipes with heated welded joints 4. correctly designed and constructed infiltration trenches 5. on-going education of householders, regulators, real estate agents and other

stakeholders 6. remote monitoring 7. interactive databases 8. professional training for on-site service people.

Building on this foundation, high quality effluent can be produced for recycling through the use of advanced treatment systems. In the USA, many of the best practices in on-site treatment technology utilize sand filters, textile filters and trickling filters with plastic or foam substrates. Effluent quality of <10 mg/L biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and total suspended solids (TSS) and in some cases <1 mg/L is the norm. Effluent of this high clarity can be effectively disinfected with an ultra-violet (UV) filter to produce a product with high reuse potential. 2.6 Private water utilities On-site Systems Inc. in Tennessee have operated as a Level 4 private water utility for the past five years. They primarily install Orenco Systems Incorporated (OSI) equipment (manufactured in Oregon) as well as their own watertight concrete septic tanks in new housing estates. Developers pay for the sewerage systems and recover the cost from the householders. On-site Systems Inc. are licensed by the State to manage on-site districts to specific requirement and to charge a standard fee. All systems, including septic tanks, are continuously remotely monitored, alleviating the necessity of frequent on-site inspections. All valves and pumps, any apparatus that moves or uses electricity as well as flow rates are monitored. In sensitive environments specific water quality parameters can also be monitored. At the first sign of a problem the service operator is paged. The fault is often

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fixed before the householder is even aware of the fault. This high level of monitoring and service ensures that there are very few system failures. It is in the best (commercial) interests of the private water utility that there are few system failures as well as being necessary for them to meet their licence requirements. Pegram, Tennessee, a township of 100 households and a school is serviced by a decentralized sewerage system incorporating watertight septic tanks with effluent filters, small diameter watertight PVC pipes and one Orenco recirculating sand filter. The complete system cost just under US$1 million - $350,000 for the school system, and $600,000 for the 100 homes i.e. $6,000 per home. The effluent has a BOD and TSS of 3-5 mg/L and is used to subsurface irrigate an area of farmland. This relatively inexpensive capital cost of $6,000 per lot is largely due to the reduced cost of laying the small diameter pipes and the lower capital cost of the recirculating sand filter compared to a conventional sewage treatment plant (STP). There are approximately 30 on-site sewerage management districts in the US that have been centrally managed for around 20 years. Stinson Beach, a community 32 kilometres north of San Francisco, is one of the longest established. Twenty-two years ago it was realized that failing septic systems were polluting the groundwater and nearby wetland. The residents decided to upgrade their on-site systems and establish a private water utility to monitor and maintain all on-site systems. Today there are 700 lots at Stinson Beach, most are 800 square metres or less in size. Many are just 250 square metres in area. All lots have a septic tank with effluent filter. (Effluent filters are required by law, in septic tanks in 14 states in the US.) Seventy percent of the households have upgraded to an Orenco intermittent sand filter. Ten percent have other manufacturer’s advanced treatment systems and the other twenty percent simply have infiltration trenches following the septic tanks. Notwithstanding the small lot size all wastewater is treated on-site, there are no cluster (decentralized) systems. All properties have ‘bottomless’ raised infiltration beds after the advanced treatment systems. The treated effluent filters through the infiltration bed into the sand dune below and percolates through to the water table. The groundwater has been continuously monitored since the inception of the private water utility 22 years ago. Since the upgrade of the on-site systems, the faecal coliform count in the groundwater has been zero (Stinson Beach, 2001). This arrangement of on-site systems on small blocks of land is only applicable to sand based terrain, clay soils would require larger lot sizes. However, creative use has been made of the raised infiltration beds by planting them with attractive plants that like to have ‘wet feet’. This added evapo-transpiration process reduces the amount of effluent flowing to the groundwater by up to 40%. A far greater use of water-loving plants and raised infiltration beds could be made in Australia, especially where the natural soil is not particularly favourable for effluent infiltration. 2.7 Public water utilities and centralized management Mobile Alabama Water and Sewerage Service (MAWSS) is an example of a Level 5 management organization where the utility owns and operates the on-site systems (White et al, 2000). Over the last few years this public water authority has worked with developers to build four new housing sub-divisions with decentralized sewerage services based on the new paradigm of a watertight system utilizing advanced on-site technology. All four communities (80, 80, 1,000 and 1,500 homes) use Orenco technology. The two communities of 80 homes both use a textile filter called ‘AdvanTex’ and the two larger communities use recirculating sand filters. All homes have a watertight septic tank with effluent filter in their backyards. Small diameter watertight pipes (25 mm) take the effluent through the property to join a 50

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mm common main pipe. These pressurized PVC pipes conduct the effluent to the nearby decentralized treatment system. In the case of the textile filters, instead of 80 AdvanTex tanks being installed in the 80 backyards, when the tanks are clustered together in a decentralized system only 48 units are required. This enables huge savings in capital costs and also operating and maintenance costs as service personnel only have to go to one location instead of 80. Of course, the 80 septic tanks still have to be periodically inspected but this is infrequent due to the remote monitoring surveillance. The complete cost of the decentralized sewerage systems in these four communities is $5,000 per lot. This compares favourably to $10,000 to $15,000 for conventional reticulated sewerage services in the rest of MAWSS’s area of operation. Effluent quality is <5 mg/L of BOD and TSS. Developers are very enthusiastic about the technology and the reduced costs, and are eager to work with MAWSS on similar housing projects. Sydney Water is taking the initiative in NSW to review advanced international and Australian on-site and decentralised technologies in the light of this new paradigm of centralized management utilizing sophisticated remote monitoring. Advanced on-site technology could form a suite or continuum of technologies in addition to the conventional reticulated sewerage treatment systems with which Sydney Water already has expertise. The concept is to use whatever provides the best outcome in terms of the triple bottom line – the specific economic, social and environmental criteria in each situation. 3 Conclusion On-site sewerage has a poor reputation for performance in the eyes of the public and regulators. Left in the hands of the householder, many on-site treatment systems will continue to fail due to neglect, revulsion, ignorance or lack of skill. On-site equipment requires on-going professional service and maintenance to perform efficiently and reliably. Centralized management incorporating remote monitoring and interactive databases takes on-site sewerage into the professional domain where performance standards are more readily monitored and maintained, and accountability is assured. That on-site systems can be a high quality, long-term, affordable solution to many sanitation challenges is a paradigm shift for many people. On-going education of all stakeholders will be necessary to highlight the benefits. And the benefits of centrally managed on-site systems are many: less expensive high quality sewerage services; watertight systems; short feedback loop between householder’s wastewater and effluent quality; local solutions; local reuse potential; sustainable water management; catchment based integrated water cycle management in some cases; resource recovery; reduction of point source discharges; environmental protection; public health protection; data collection on numerous environmental parameters; freedom from uncertainty of performance; professional accountability; integrated systems; education of stakeholders; employment opportunities; research opportunities; targeting treatment upgrades to smaller problematic areas; reduction of forecasting risk; greater control over the waste stream increasing the value and usability of biosolids and effluent (Pinkham, 2000). As a consequence centrally managed watertight on-site sewage treatment systems may be the ‘Rolls Royce’ of sewerage service in the future, but with an affordable price tag.

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Acknowledgements All the people who contributed to my 10 month tour of innovative on-site sewerage in northern Europe and the USA in 2000, but especially Bruce Douglas – Stone Environmental; Charles Pickney – On-site Systems Inc.; Dr George Tchobanoglous – University of California, Davis; Dr Stuart White – Institute of Sustainable Futures, UTS; Dr Cynthia Mitchell – Sydney University; and the Sydney Water Corporation. And more recently, Dr Kevin White – University of South Alabama. References Pinkham, Richard (2000) Valuing Decentralized Technologies for Water Quality Protection: A Catalog of Benefits and Economic Analysis Techniques. Unpublished paper. Rocky Mountains Institute, Snowmass, USA. Otis, Richard J. (1998) 'Decentralized Wastewater Treatment: A Misnomer' On-site Wastewater Treatment: 8th Symposium of Individual and Small Community Sewage Systems, Ed. Dennis M. Sievers, ASAE, Michigan, USA. Stinson Beach, (2001) http://stinson-beach-cwd.dst.ca.us US EPA (1997) Response to Congress on the Use of Decentralized Wastewater Treatment Systems, EPA 832-R-97-001b. US EPA (2000) Guidelines for Management of On-site/Decentralized Wastewater Systems, EPA, 832-F-00-038. White, Kevin D., Wilhelm, Kathryn A., Baker, Harold C., & Steeves, W. Malcolm (2000) 'Implementation of a Decentralized Wastewater Management System Employing Reuse in Suburban Mobile, Alabama', Water Environment Federation Conference Proceedings, WEFTECH, Anaheim CA, USA.

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APPENDIX B

INNOVATIONS FROM SCANDINAVIA: INCREASING THE POTENTIAL FOR REUSE

Sarah West, Sydney Water Corporation On-site ’01 Conference, ‘Advancing Onsite Wastewater Systems’

Armidale, NSW, Australia, September 2001 http://www.lanfaxlabs.com.au/onsite01

Abstract Scandinavia is at the forefront of reusing the by-products of sewage. In Scandinavia, sewage is seen as a valuable resource, not simply as a waste product to be treated and disposed of with the least possible risk to public health and the environment. Where possible, the by-products of sewage are recycled to agricultural land, closing the loop from food to excrement to fertiliser to crops and back to food. A key to the successful reuse of sewage is source separation. Two innovations, the Aquatron™ and urine-separating toilets, separate faeces and urine out of blackwater before it flows into the septic tank. The Aquatron is a wet composting system receiving only blackwater. Solids and water separate in the Aquatron. Solids fall into a container below and are digested by worms before being recycled back to the land. The water spins off to join the household greywater for treatment. Urine-separating toilets have a small ‘dam wall’ in the front of the bowl to collect urine. From there, urine flows to a storage container. After six months of storage the urine is sprayed on or injected into agricultural land. A further advantage of source separation is that the resulting greywater can be designed to contain either high or low levels of nutrients in accordance with the end use, or nutrients can be recovered from the greywater before it goes to a land application. Another Scandinavian innovation, Filtralite™, an ultra-light, porous, baked clay pellet, is an effective addition to the treatment train, successfully reducing phosphorus and nitrates in sewage effluent. Source separation enables subsequent sewage treatment systems to operate more effectively and have a longer efficient life, as well as reducing the public health and environmental risks from pathogens and nutrients. Keywords: greywater, phosphorus, Scandinavia, source separation, urine-separating toilets, wet composting 1 Introduction to Resource Recovery The Scandinavian philosophy behind innovative sewage treatment is that sewage is a resource with nutrients that should be returned to farmland and not discarded to waterways (Etnier, et al., 1997, Hellström & Johansson, 1999, Johansson & Lennartsson, 1999, Sundblad & Johansson, undated). Therefore, it is important that trade waste has a separate waste stream to sewage. The end product of sewage must be high in nutrients, low in toxic compounds and have a limited public health risk. Sewage from a single person contains enough nutrients to produce 200 kg of grain (Table 1) (Sundblad & Johansson, undated). The per capita annual discharge of domestic sewage in Norway contains 5.1 kg of nitrogen, 0.7 kg of phosphorus and 35 kg of organic matter. Nutrients in sewage from the total population

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(4.5 million people) are equivalent to 15% of the artificial fertiliser used in Norwegian agriculture. In 1997 this was valued at US$30 million (Etnier, et al., 1997). Table 1. Nutritional requirements of 200 kg of grain as supplied by the excrement from one person. (Sundblad & Johansson, undated).

Nutrients Urine kg/p/yr

Faeces kg/p/yr

Nutrient demand for 200 kg grain

Nitrogen 4.5 0.6 5.1 kg Phosphorus 0.4 0.3 0.6 kg Potassium 0.9 0.15 1.0 kg

This paper presents three Scandinavian innovations designed to recover nutrients from sewage to close the agricultural loop, which simultaneously reduce the load of nutrients, organic matter and pathogens discharged to waterways and reduce environmental pollution. 2 Source Separation with the Aquatron™ The Aquatron™ is a Swedish wet composting system designed to separate solids (faeces and toilet paper) from the liquid portion of blackwater (urine and water) following the conventional ‘water closet’ toilet (Del Porto & Steinfeld, 2000; Harper & Halestrap, 1999; Grant, et al., 2000). Greywater from the house, school or apartment block is piped separately to a greywater collection tank. The Aquatron is a single plastic unit moulded in the shape of an hourglass, with no moving parts and needing no electricity. Below the Aquatron unit is a chamber for the collection of solids. The Aquatron unit and collection chamber can be installed below the floor of the toilet or adjacent to the toilet behind the house. After the toilet is flushed, blackwater flows along a pipe that must enter the top of the Aquatron at 4° from the horizontal for the apparatus to function correctly, as shown in Figure 1. Where the influent pipe is horizontal with the orifice of the Aquatron unit, excess water enters the collection chamber, inhibiting solids degradation and causing foul odours. After entering the Aquatron the water component of the blackwater spins around the inside of the hourglass shaped unit by centripetal force while the solids fall through the middle to the chamber below. The collection chamber houses a vermiculture system that reduces the volume of solids by 90% over time. Toilet paper entering the collection chamber does trap some toilet water. This water drains from an outlet in the bottom of the collection chamber to join the rest of the toilet water that has drained from the base of the Aquatron. This combined liquid passes through an ultra-violet disinfection unit before it is piped to the greywater collection tank (Fig. 1).

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Fig. 1 Aquatron™ (separator) with collecting chamber and ultra-violet unit (www.aquatron.se).

Decomposed solids are removed from the collection chamber 3 to 5 years after the system has been commissioned. In New South Wales the decomposed solids must be buried in a hole in the ground for three months before being used as a garden fertiliser for non-food plants. This feature of separating solids from water and eliminating the conventional septic tank is ideal for areas where it is not possible to pumpout or desludge septic tanks i.e. island and coastal communities with no road access. The added bonus is the opportunity to close the loop from food to excrement to soil to plants and avoid the discharge of nutrients to a waterbody, as happens when the solids from a septic tank are treated at a municipal sewage treatment plant. The disadvantage of the Aquatron, when compared with other wet composting systems, is that because it only takes blackwater, the Aquatron cannot treat any of the solids or grease in greywater. However, kitchen scraps and paper can be added to the vermiculture system via a hatch at the top of the collection chamber. The optimal temperature for composting is 12° to 25°C. For ease of recovering the composted solids, two collection chambers can be installed. Mark Moodie of Elemental Solutions Ltd (pers. comm. 2000) installed a two chambered system at Folly Foot Farm, a working farm and wildlife education centre near Bath, England. It is proposed that after 5 years the second chamber will be commissioned, leaving the first chamber to compost for a further year before worm castings are extracted and dug into the soil around ornamental trees. In New Zealand approximately 1500 Aquatrons have been installed in homes and schools over the last 10 years. These Aquatrons have been manufactured in New Zealand by Eco-Toilets Ltd. Eco-Toilets manufacture a collection chamber for the Aquatron, specially designed to facilitate easy removal of the composted solids from the base of the chamber. Where the Aquatron is installed adjacent to a building, a small shed is built around the unit to ameliorate fluctuating seasonal temperatures. The Aquatron is also an appropriate technology to retrofit failing on-site sewage treatment systems. Whether the septic tank or the land infiltration trench is failing, the Aquatron can take pressure off the system and create a functional system. The septic tank would need to be desludged and cleaned (and made waterproof if necessary) to make it suitable to hold greywater. By installing an Aquatron and solids collection chamber for faecal matter and kitchen scraps, organic matter is largely eliminated from the land disposal system, enabling the soil to absorb effluent from the greywater septic tank more efficiently and over a longer period of time than is possible from a combined black and greywater system.

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4 Urine-Separating Toilets Urine has a greater amount of nutrients than faeces. Urine contains 80 – 90% of the nitrogen (N), 90% of the potassium (K) and 50% of the phosphorus (P) in household sewage (Johansson & Lennartsson, 1999). Urine-separating toilets were invented in Scandinavia to reuse the nitrogenous substances and other nutrients in urine in agriculture, to reduce the need for costly fertilizers, to close the food to excrement to crop loop, to decrease the load on wastewater treatment plants and to reduce the polluting effect of nutrients in waterways (Hellström & Johansson, 1999). Dry composting and flush toilets have been redesigned to incorporate a second bowl in the front section of the toilet bowl (Fig. 2). A small wall separates the urine collection area from the faecal deposition area i.e. the front bowl from the back bowl. A fine water spray (0.2 L) or air suction is used to flush or draw urine from the front bowl through a pipe to a urine collecting tank. The collecting tank varies in size depending on whether it is servicing a house, school, or large building with multiple toilets. When the tank is full, the urine will remain in the tank for a further six months. The European Union has made a directive that urine must be stored for six months before reuse, to allow sufficient time for pathogen die off. When installing urine-separating toilets, organisations contract with a local farmer for urine reuse. After six months storage the farmer drives a tanker to the building and siphons the urine from the collecting tank to the truck. Using a tractor the urine is sprayed onto or injected into farm land used for growing fodder crops and food crops that are not certified organic or biodynamic. The trend is now to inject the urine, as aerial spraying causes foul odours. Fig. 2. Urine-separating toilet as part of a dry composting (W.M. Ekologen) system (Etnier, et al,1997).

Retrofitting public buildings is relatively simple, as men’s toilets already have urinals. Therefore, only women’s toilets need to be retrofitted with urine-separating toilets. This does not require any change in cultural toilet habits. However, when a urine-separating toilet is installed in a house a cultural change is needed - men need to sit down to urinate. An added benefit of urine-separating toilets, especially for composting toilets, is that unpleasant odours are reduced.

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5 ‘Designer’ Greywater A further advantage of source separation is that the resulting greywater can be designed to contain either high or low levels of nutrients in accordance with the end use, or nutrients can be recovered from the greywater before the effluent goes to a land application. If the surrounding land or waterways are environmentally sensitive low nutrient levels will be required. Otherwise, if the effluent can be used to water and fertilise garden plants and lawn, a higher nutrient level will be valuable asset, saving the expense of potable water and fertiliser. Greywater is generally devoid of urine, except when the greywater contains effluent from the Aquatron. However, a urine-separating toilet can be installed with the Aquatron to avoid urine entering the greywater system By including or excluding urine, and by using household cleaning products with high or low levels of nutrients. Urine combined with greywater containing ‘normal’ levels of phosphorus from phosphorus containing detergents, creates a nutritious resource with a P:K:N ratio suitable for plant growth. Where low nutrients are required in environmental sensitive areas (to avoid weed invasion on land and eutrophication of waterways), low phosphorus household and personal cleaning products (and urine-separating toilets with Aquatrons) will reduce the potential for nutrients entering the greywater stream. A further step is to eliminate nutrients from greywater by adding other elements into the treatment train. Several products, bauxite tailings or ‘amended soil’, ultra light weight aggregate (LWA or Filtralite™), Zeolite and crushed red brick, have all been found to adsorb phosphate and nitrogenous compounds to varying degrees. Greywater (or combined black and greywater) passes through a bed of the selected material before the effluent enters a land disposal system. 6 Phosphorus Removal In Norway, sewage effluent discharged to streams must contain <1 mg/L of phosphorus because many waterways are highly polluted with nutrients from agriculture (Jenssen, 2000). A Norwegian innovation, Filtralite P™ an ultra-light weight, porous, baked clay pellet, is an effective addition to the treatment train, successfully reducing phosphorus and nitrates in sewage effluent. The pellets are sourced from clay high in iron (Fe), aluminium (Al), magnesium (Mg) and / or calcium (Ca) and fired at 1200°C for four hours in a 65 m long revolving kiln. Organic matter and water within the clay vaporises at this high temperature leaving numerous pores in an expanded ceramic pebble. The light-weight aggregate, can be crushed to different sizes for various purposes. Aerobic pre-treatment and low loading rates are required for optimal phosphorus and nitrogen removal. A biofilm on the LWA consumes nitrates while phosphorus is adsorbed onto Fe, Al, Ca and Mg sites on the surface and in the pores of the pellets. A typical treatment train is: 1.septic tank, 2. aerobic sand filter for nitrification, 3. anaerobic sand filter with reeds for denitrification, and 4. a bed of Filtralite P™ (pH 10 –11) for phosphorus and nitrate removal. The level of P in the effluent from such a treatment train is 0.25 mg/L (Jenssen, 2000). LWA can also be used as the primary treatment medium. At a school near Oslo a large bed of Filtralite is finely sprayed with raw effluent from the septic tank. The effluent is sprayed under high pressure so that the nozzles do not clog. A typical effluent output for a similar system can be seen in Table 2 (Johansson & Lennartsson, 1999).

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Table 2. Effluent quality after LWA treatment

Parameter Reduction Phosphorus >90% BOD >75% Nitrates Up to 40% Ammonium-N Up to 80%

Other materials are capable of adsorbing P, but not as effectively as LWA (see Table 3). Table 3. Phosphorus (mg) uptake per kilogram of sand, clay and Filtralite P.

Substrate P adsorption rate mg/kg

Weathered Sand 600 Clay 250 to 1500 Filtralite P™ Up to 12,000

An adsorption rate of 4,000 mg/kg is typical for Filtralite P™ over a 15 year period. The volume of Filtralite P™ required per person is 0.3 m³ per year. For a 4 person household, this equates to 18 m³ for 15 years. LWA takes up less space than a Norwegian sand filter because of the higher ratio of void space to substrate. It is asserted that Filtralite P™ will continue to adsorb phosphorus for 20 to 25 years, after which time the LWA is dug up and reused as soil conditioner, slowly releasing its nutrients to plant roots (Jenssen, 2000). Showing that, unlike many other P adsorbing or flocculating products, Filtralite™ can be completely recycled leaving no waste product. In addition it closes two loops – that of LWA from clay back to soil, and nutrients from food back to nutrients for plants. This is ecological sustainability at its best. 7 Conclusion Scandinavia is at the forefront of recycling sewage nutrients in the western world. The emphasis is on resource recovery not just safe disposal. A product is a resource where it is needed and can be a pollutant where it is not needed. Recovering and recycling the products in sewage (nutrients, organic matter and water) enables a potential pollutant to become a resource and eliminates the potential for environmental degradation. Closing the agricultural loop with sewage by-products reduces the cost of fertiliser and food, and avoids the otherwise added costs of environmental impact and restoration. Harvestable and renewable crops, especially fodder, fibre, flowers and tree crops are well suited to reusing nutrients and water from treated sewage. Using the principle of source separation, the Aquatron and urine-separating toilets keep the nutrients and organic matter of excrement out of the household water stream, greatly shortening the sewage treatment train, thereby saving resources through simplified recovery and treatment. Sewage solids and urine are then readily available for simple processing and reuse. Filtralite™ is a valuable addition to a sewage treatment train, where a reduction in the nutrient content of the effluent is required. The added bonus is that the stored phosphorus and clay pellets can later be recycled to agricultural land or gardens for beneficial reuse. With the addition of these three Scandinavian inventions sewage treatment systems could be reclassified as ‘fertiliser reclamation factories’ or ‘nutrient processing centres’ (Etnier et al, 1997).

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Acknowledgements I particularly wish to thank Petter Jenssen of the Agricultural University of Norway in Aas, Gunilla Jansen of ScandiaConsult in Göteborg, Bjorn Guterstam previously of Stensund Folke College near Trosa, Glenn Carlson of Celero Support in Aarhus, Robert af Wetterstedt of Understendshöjden Ecovillage in Stockholm, Pia Larssen of Smeden Ecovillage in Jönkoping, Jan Wijkmark of VERNA in Stockholm and Peter Steen Mikkelson of the Danish Technical University in Copenhagen for their contribution to my understanding of sewerage in Scandinavia. References Del Porto, D. & Steinfeld C. (2000), The Composting Toilet System Book, The Center for Ecological Pollution Prevention, Concord MA Etnier, C., Norén, G. & Bogdanowicz, R. (1997), Ecotechnology for wastewater treatment: functioning facilities in the Baltic Sea Region, Coalition Clean Baltic, Stockholm, Sweden. Grant, N., Moodie, M. & Weedon, C. (2000), Sewage Solutions: answering the call of nature, The Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth, Wales. Harper, P. & Halestrap, L. (1999), Lifting the Lid: an ecological approach to toilet systems, The Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth, Wales. Hellström, D. & Johansson, E. (1999), ‘Swedish experiences with urine-separating systems’, Wasser & Boden, 51/11, pp. 26-29, Blackwell, Berlin. Jenssen, P. (2000), Alternative Wastewater Treatment and Technology Seminar, Agricultural University of Norway, Aas, May 2000. Johansson, M. & Lennartsson, M. (1999), Sustainable Wastewater Treatment for Single-Family Homes, Coalition Clean Baltic, Stockholm, Sweden. Sundblad, K. & Johansson, M. (no date), Ecological engineering in sewage management, Coalition Clean Baltic, Stockholm, Sweden. www.aquatron.se Aquatron in Sweden www.filtralite.com Filtralite / Light Weight Aggregate www.wost-man-ecology.se W.M. Ekologen urine-separating toilets

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APPENDIX C Decentralised Sewerage Service There are many factors in the current social, economic, environmental, technical and political arenas that suggest that it is time for a fresh appraisal of the issue of centralised sewerage service versus decentralised sewerage. However, experience in the United States shows that it is not an either / or option and that both approaches have merit. It is a matter of choosing the appropriate technology and system on a case by case basis. Definition of a Decentralised Sewerage Service A sewage treatment system for a rural village or town, suburb, cluster of homes, industrial estate, factory, commercial premises or urban highrise building that is located within or adjacent to the premise(s). This can be an established unsewered community, a greenfield site or an urban infill (brown) site. Components of a ‘Best Practice’ Decentralised Sewerage System Collection Systems: A range of technologies are available: a. household interceptor tanks with effluent filters (anaerobic or aerobic) b. household grinder pumps (maceration pumps / sewage ejection units) c. combination of household vortex pump and community interceptor tank or collection

chamber with effluent filter d. vacuum systems e. dry composting toilets with greywater holding tank f. source separation units for urine, faeces and greywater Reticulation: Reticulation typically utilises small diameter, pressurised or gravity-fed, medium density polyethylene pipes. Heat welded joints ensure that all pipes from the house to the treatment plant at totally watertight. This enables: a. the elimination of all wet weather in-flows and infiltration b. the elimination of large pumping stations and utilisation of small pumping units c. the elimination of sewer overflow valves d. the elimination of wet weather discharge of untreated sewage to receiving waters e. a reduction in the volume of sewage treated f. the elimination of exfiltration. Treatment Plants: A range of technologies is available: a. sand filters b. textile filters c. aerated trickling filters with foam or plastic media d. membrane bio-reactors e. reedbeds / wetlands f. various package plants.

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Effluent Reuse: Decentralised systems provide an opportunity for local reuse of the treated effluent. Residential effluent and bio-solids are of high quality as there is no industrial contamination. Greywater can also be diverted to be treated and reused separately from blackwater. Reuse options include: a. industrial processes b. golf courses c. turf farms d. wood plantations for firewood, pulp wood, craft wood, joinery timber e. private and public gardens f. sporting ovals and playing fields g. toilet flushing h. farms – orchards, nut plantations, vineyards, flowers, fodder crops, grazing land Unsewered Communities 1. Issues The issues that contribute to a re-evaluation of the way sewerage services have been traditionally delivered and which favour decentralised sewerage are: 1.1 Economics ♦ a greater return on capital expenditure is now required. As the large pipes connecting

villages to STPs are a significant proportion of the total cost, lower cost decentralised sewerage systems may provide a solution;

1.2 Environmental ♦ more stringent environmental standards for discharge of effluent to waterways may

favour local reuse from decentralised plants; ♦ government push for ecological sustainable development favours effluent reuse; ♦ customers have voiced a preference for effluent reuse instead of ocean and river

discharges; ♦ in striving to limit the use of energy and greenhouse gases, gains can be made through

decentralised systems which do not require pumping stations and can incorporate local energy production such as solar power or wind turbines

1.3 Social ♦ many rural communities value their independence from surrounding towns and cities, and

some favour retaining responsibility for their own sewerage; 1.4 Technology ♦ the present large centralised systems do not readily accommodate the adoption of new

whole-of-plant technologies, whereas more numerous small scale, cost effective systems could be more easily upgraded as advanced technologies become available.

2. Benefits The benefits accruing from a decentralised sewerage service are: 2.1 Economics ♦ lower cost than connection to a centralised treatment plant, especially in remote, hilly,

rocky or flat areas ♦ increased rate of return on investment ♦ reduces the forecasting risk through ‘building as you need’ and ‘paying as you go’

(Pinkham, 2000)

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2.2 Environmental ♦ facilitates catchment based solutions ♦ decentralised schemes can be integrated with water supply and stormwater services in a

catchment or sub-catchment enabling sustainable yields and usage ♦ supports total water cycle management ♦ opportunity to match water quality to end use ie non-potable quality for toilet flushing;

treated effluent containing nutrients to plants ♦ upgrades can be targeted to priority problem areas instead of whole area required for

economies of scale with centralised systems ♦ local water use decreases the need for inter-basin transfer of water ♦ local reuse increases soil moisture, groundwater recharge and stream baseflow,

decreasing susceptibility of the land to drought, and decreasing flood peaks while increasing environmental flows – the system more closely mimics nature

♦ facilitates resource recovery - greater control of the influent increases bio-solids useability and value

♦ reduction of point source discharge contributes utility aims to reduce discharge to waterways

♦ protection of public and environmental health ♦ provides opportunities for targeted demand management, benefiting the decentralised

treatment plant by reducing loading ♦ lower use of energy ♦ potential to produce of local ‘green’ energy through solar or wind power ♦ flexible small diameter polyethylene pipes can be routed around culturally and

environmentally significant sites reducing the cost, construction time and impact of the reticulation

♦ as there is no need for pipes to follow the creek lines, the health and integrity of the riparian zone and waterway is protected.

2.3 Social ♦ retains sense of local self-sufficiency ♦ enhances local sense of identity ♦ potential for sewerage solutions to be congruent with the needs of the local community

and culture ♦ potential for a short feedback loop between effluent quality and householders’ use and

abuse of water ♦ potential for targeted wastewater and water education ♦ provides an opportunity for customers to have more input in the decision making process

and to have choices ♦ shorter construction time and rapid land restoration due to small trenches for the small

diameter pipes, reduces public inconvenience ♦ water conservation measures taken more seriously as the impact is local. 2.4 Technology ♦ expands the range of product and service options which can be tailored to more closely

match customers’ needs ♦ opportunities for new technologies to be trialed ♦ maximises use of existing infrastructure by not overloading it

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♦ expertise in sustainable decentralised sewerage systems can provide an enormous opportunity to export the technology and management skills to developing and developed countries

2.5 Management ♦ facilitates adaptive management ♦ enables integrated catchment management ♦ encourages community and government partnerships ♦ operation and maintenance is simplified ♦ facilitates integration of water, wastewater and stormwater services ♦ centralised management utilising remote monitoring ensures professional and prompt

service. 3. Challenges When appropriately designed, sited, operated and maintained decentralised sewerage systems will meet public health and water quality goals. However, a number of obstacles exist that may delay the acceptance of decentralised systems: ♦ lack of knowledge about the technology ♦ the need to design new maintenance and management systems ♦ negative perceptions of on-site systems and interceptor tanks ♦ regulatory barriers ♦ community, utility and regulator education of the risks and benefits ♦ multi-skilling staff ♦ institutional barriers ♦ high level of familiarity and comfort with centralised systems by all stakeholders. Sewer Mining using Decentralised Treatment Systems Benefits: ♦ takes pressure off reticulation system running near capacity ♦ takes pressure off deteriorating infrastructure ♦ effluent can be treated to the grade required for local reuse ie industrial or horticultural ♦ can relieve the pressure put on existing infrastructure by urban consolidation. Reference: Pinkham, Richard (2000) Valuing Decentralised Technologies for Water Quality Protection:

A Catalogue of Benefits and Economic Analysis Techniques Rocky Mountains Institute, Snowmass CO, USA www.rmi.org

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APPENDIX D

ON-SITE NewZ SPECIAL REPORT 01/2

A Care for the Environment Project

INNOVATIVE DECENTRALISED SEWERAGE

Treatment and Management Systems in Northern Europe and the USA

A Report on a Presentation by Sarah West, Product Options Analyst, Marketing and Business Growth, Sydney Water Corporation, to a combined meeting of NZWWA and

On-Site NewZ, Auckland, 7th June 2001

Compiled By: Ian Gunn, Editor, On-Site NewZ, July 2001

BACKGROUND Sarah West visited New Zealand during June to undertake a series of visits to on-site and small community wastewater servicing developments. While in Auckland she made a presentation to some 65 members of NZWWA and On-Site NewZ on the findings of her year 2000 study tour involving 10 months visiting decentralised sewerage systems and ecovillages, and the gathering of information on innovative technologies and management systems. Sarah left a copy of her presentation overheads with me, and along with the detailed notes I made during the evening, these provided the basis for the following On-Site NewZ Special Report.

ISSUES for SYDNEY WATER Some 60,000 residents are serviced by on-site wastewater systems in the Sydney Water area of responsibility. This includes some 64 villages in the Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment, all of which are on a “backlog” list for eventual sewering. However, centralised sewerage servicing has been estimated to cost some $16,000 to $70,000 per dwelling lot, and this has driven an effort to examine cost effective on-site (or de-centralised) alternatives. Sarah’s study tour was directed at assessing alternative wastewater servicing options in both Europe and the USA. A further initiative being explored by the University of Western Sydney, Richmond campus and Sydney Water is the setting up of an on-site technology demonstration centre so that professionals and community members can examine first hand specific alternative systems and see them in operation. The Richmond campus of the University of Western Sydney is pursuing the development of the centre with the aim of providing some 20 treatment and land application systems for display and educational purposes. [Editor’s Note: For a description of such on-site wastewater training centres in the USA, see On-Site NewZ Special Report 98/2.]

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DECENTRALISED vs CENTRALISED WASTEWATER SERVICING The whole area of on-site and decentralised wastewater management can be seen as a business opportunity in servicing of both retrofits in existing communities (brownfields), and in servicing greenfields developments. The objective is to develop on-lot and/or cluster decentralised systems but under centralised management. It is recognised that even with innovative technology, leaving on-site systems to be operated by householders (as is done at present) is bound to continue the current significant level of failures. Sarah cited Richard Otis (one of the leading professionals in the on-site wastewater area in the USA) on this issue. He has pointed out that centralised sewerage and treatment is perceived as providing: • freedom from uncertainty of performance, • freedom from householder responsibility, • predictable costs, and • protection of public health. Richard went on to comment on the consideration given to centralised versus decentralised servicing by presenting the case for decentralised treatment with centralised management:

“If we are to successfully provide affordable wastewater facilities in unsewered communities, we must stop comparing the two alternatives as either/or options…. We must promote wastewater treatment alternatives as a continuum of technologies, under central management”. [Richard Otis, 1998]

In other words, the public perceptions of what centralised servicing provides must be similarly secured for decentralised servicing.

USE OF ON-SITE SYSTEMS IN EUROPE and THE USA Sarah found that around 10% of wastewater servicing in the UK, Sweden, The Netherlands, Denmark, and Germany was via on-site systems, 50% in Norway, and 25% in the USA. That works out in the USA at some 65 million people serviced by on-site systems, half of which are located in cities or suburbs of cities. Something like 35% of all new housing developments are now on-site serviced. On-site servicing in that country is thus not seen any longer as a temporary measure before sewers come along. In addition in the US, advanced on-site technologies are being used to retrofit failed systems, to service apartment blocks, and to mine water from sewers in industrial estates for reuse. Very expensive housing developments are being provided with on-site servicing. Beverly Hills in LA is all on-site, and it is said that Barbara Streisand was one of those who lobbied the local council to keep their on-site systems. However, with something of the order of 25% of all systems being “failed” at any one time (usually older systems that are filling up with effluent and not soaking away efficiently any more), there is considerable pressure in the US to install upgrades. The USEPA in a 1997 report to Congress advised that “decentralised systems, where properly managed, could protect water quality over the long term and do so at lower cost than conventional systems in many communities”. This statement effectively legitimised on-site as an appropriate long term servicing option, and has resulted in a lot of development money coming into the industry, and a new perception of this approach to wastewater management. There is a lot of interest in the performance of on-site management districts, with 30 such districts in the US (some of which have been operating for over 20 years).

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MANAGEMENT LEVELS in ON-SITE WASTEWATER SERVICING The USEPA has subsequently issued (December 2000) its Guidelines for Management of Onsite /Decentralized Wastewater Systems which sets out five levels of management: 1. Systems inventory and awareness of maintenance requirements. 2. Maintenance contracts. 3. Operating permits. 4. Utility operation and maintenance. 5. Utility ownership and management. In Australia, NSW has moved into levels 1 and 2 through its new local government regulations. The US is aiming to move to levels 4 and 5 in due course. Level 4 involves householder ownership of the system, but a private or public utility looks after the on-site systems, or in some cases uses STEP / STEG (septic tank effluent pump or septic tank effluent gravity) sewerage to off-site treatment. [Editor’s Note: The equivalent “down under” terms are CEDS (common effluent drainage scheme), STEDS (septic tank effluent drainage system), MEDS (modified effluent drainage system) or EDS (effluent drainage servicing)]. At level 5 the utility owns all elements of the system from where it leaves the dwelling. Whereas centralised sewerage servicing might cost $30/month per household, full centralised management of decentralised servicing is likely to cost $25 to $35/month for on-site system inspections, repairs, and eventual replacement if needed in 25 to 30 years. At the moment in the USA there are more private utilities than public ones. A recent example of a soundly based public utility is that at Mobile, Alabama, where four greenfields sites (the smallest of 80 homes, the largest of 1,500 homes) are managed by the public water authority. Orenco technologies are used throughout. The 80 home development is serviced by the new AdvanTexTM fabric filter units with on-site septic tanks and an off-site treatment cluster. Recirculating sand filter (RSF) systems are used for cluster treatment of septic tank effluent in the other developments. Cost comparisons show that conventional sewerage and centralised treatment was between $10,000 to $15,000 per lot, whereas the on-lot system under centralised management was around $5,000/lot, a saving of half to two-thirds the cost of conventional. Developers are reported to be very keen to advance this approach in the locality.

KEY ELEMENTS for DECENTRALISED SEWERAGE SERVICING The first key element is that septic tanks must be fitted with effluent outlet filters. At the present time some 14 States in the US have a mandatory requirement for installation of filters. This has significant advantages in sewering for off-site cluster treatment. Small-bore sewer lines can be used, and the heat welding of joints ensures fully watertight transfer of primary effluent flows with zero infiltration. 30mm lines from on-site septic tank and 50mm lines in the street to local treatment plant are used. The resulting controlled flow volumes are low in solids due to on-site pre-treatment, and are economically conducive to advanced treatment which (with UV disinfection) give a re-usable product for recycling. Essentially, opportunity is provided for value added effluent “reuse”. [Sarah noted that such an approach was already in use in NZ, this country being more innovative than NSW.] Other key elements included the use of remote monitoring and interactive data bases, ongoing education of all stakeholders (including engineers, installers, environmental health officers, and even schools), and the use of professionally delivered operation and maintenance.

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NEW ON-SITE TECHNOLOGIES Sarah reported that she found Orenco products used right across the US, and everyone she met spoke highly of the range of equipment produced by this Oregon based company. She went on to say that there were clearly other good technologies out there as well as Orenco systems. However, for its size and price, the new AdvanTexTM fabric filter units currently appear to be delivering the best quality secondary effluent in the USA, compared to other technologies. The unit is preceded by septic tank and tube outlet filter integral with timer controlled pump and flow balancing. The biofilter action of the Canadian produced hanging fabric sheets with pulse dose application of filtered septic effluent results in excellent effluent quality. De-nitrification via a collection well in the base of the unit was another treatment advantage. With a single household unit equal in size to a small writing desk, the system was extremely compact. Effluent quality of 3 to 7 mg/L BOD and TSS was reliably achieved, with 40 to 70% total nitrogen removal (15 mg/L). The Mobile, Alabama, 80 lot cluster system with STEP off-site transfer was able to use 48 household size units to service the 80 homes. This indicates economy of treatment scale when primary effluent is aggregated to a single treatment point using AdvanTexTM. The whole system is remotely monitored, thus saving considerably on professional management time. The other Mobile developments included one comprising a 300 person equivalent (100 homes) treatment system using RSF. This was producing effluent quality of 3 to 5 g/m3 BOD and TSS, with 70% de-nitrification. Effluent was applied to land via subsurface irrigation. At $6,000 per lot this approach was found to be very cost effective.

REMOTE MONITORING TECHNOLOGY While in the US, Sarah visited a 200 household development under professional management of operation and maintenance utilising Orenco remote monitoring technology for each on-site system. Orenco has developed special software for interrogating and downloading data via regular phone lines, the call-up and transfer timed for 3am daily to avoid routine daytime phone traffic.

CASE STUDY – STINSON BEACH The coastal strip of retirement and holiday homes on high water table low sand due topography of Stinson Beach (25 miles north of San Francisco) has been served by an on-site management district for the last 22 years. Some 25 years ago, faced with widespread on-site failures and high faecal coliforms in the groundwater, homeowners decided to go with a community wide upgrade and managed operation and maintenance. The 700 homes are now serviced by intermittent sand filter (ISF) units (70%), septic tanks/effluent outlet filters and trenches (20%), and advanced technology systems (10%). Small lot sizes (and large houses) result in ISF units being installed under patios, with landscaped raised beds taking effluent for soakage and plant watering. These beds have become environmental features on the property. This whole approach works because all properties are located on sand, and the final discharge of high quality effluent is to groundwater. Monitoring shows that groundwater faecal coliforms have now been reduced to zero. The management utility issues monthly accounts which cover all servicing and repairs.

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COMMUNITY TREATMENT PLANT TECHNOLOGIES Bioclere Trickling Filter: This Swedish biofilter system has been found considerably robust in maintaining effluent quality. Sarah visited a unit servicing a hospital facility and one at a holiday camp where it was subjected to loading variations. The Living Machine: This system consists of wetland tanks in series taking effluent through floating root systems for nutrient uptake and organic matter treatment. Solar Aquatics uses clear plastic tanks around 2m depth sitting on the ground surface. The Living Machine process utilises 4m deep black plastic tanks, 2m deep into the ground and 2m above ground. Some 450 aquatic plant species have been investigated in developing the Living Machine, with some 11 tropical plants now short listed as the best performers. Sarah visited the Findhorn, (northern Scotland), facility of 300 equivalent population. The treatment “vats” contain a complex ecosystem of snails, fish, algae and protozoa, all of which are the biological treatment system. The plant system took some 6 months to become fully functional from start-up planting. The treatment plant is owned and operated by the community, and grows flowers within the planting regime. This ownership involvement by the community ensures highly motivated interest in operation and maintenance. The Scottish water regulator took samples 18 months into operation, and thought the samples had been “doctored” by the community, as they recorded tap water quality!!! However, the samples were genuine. One Living Machine household-size system has been installed in a dwelling in New Mexico with vats in the basement, and plants growing up through openings in the floor into the living areas. The vats have a nice musty rainforest odour. Some 150 Living Machine treatment facilities are now operating worldwide. Composting Toilet Systems: Sarah showed the Swedish Aquatron system in a school and an apartment block. She noted that some 1500 of the household version of these units are in use in NZ, whereas only one exists in NSW (that one being under accreditation trials). The unit uses a swirl configuration to take conventional flush toilet flows and centrifugally separate out toilet paper and faecal solids. These drop into a solids retention and worm based vermiculture tank for breakdown and stabilisation. The centrifugally separated solids-free carriage water is much easier to treat than having all waste combined as in a septic tank. Vermiculture processing reduces accumulating solids to humus material and worm casts after some 3 to 5 years stabilisation in the tank. Although the final product can be put straight on to gardens, some countries require burial for 12 months before garden use. The use of wet and dry compost toilet systems has been common throughout Sweden, Norway and Denmark for over 20 years for individual homes as well as apartment blocks. For dry systems in multi-story apartments, toilets are stacked above each other on successive floors, with the drop pipes collecting wastes in vats in the basement. Where the wet composting Aquatron is used, vat sizes have to be increased. It is quite clear that residents of Scandinavian countries have a quite different cultural perspective in dealing with human body wastes than we do in the English speaking countries, with compost toilets and urine separation flush toilet systems being more acceptable. We tend to see human waste as a problem, whereas Scandinavians see it as a resource. For example, urine from separation toilet pedestals is diverted to holding tanks in the basement of apartments, and then collected for agricultural use. Under EU regulations, the urine must be stored for 6 months before being applied as crop fertiliser on farms. In Scandinavian countries urine can be used to grow conventional food crops, but can be not be used to fertilise food or fodder crops certified ‘organic’ or ‘biodynamic’. Urine collection tankers are familiar on the streets of central

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Stockholm. Their loads are transferred to land application direct to the soil. The old practice of spray irrigation has now given way to subsoil injection. In some cases, the raw (matured) urine is diluted with water before soil injection. At the household level where compost toilets are used, urine separation is directed to the greywater tank with the resulting balance in PKN due to urine nitrogen addition producing a mixed product suitable for garden use. One of the requirements for use of urine separation toilet pedestals is the cultural shift required of men – they must sit down to urinate, as the urine catch-tray is at the front of the unit. Phosphate Removal via Filtralite™: Filtralite, a light weight aggregate (LWA), is a patented ceramic-like material, produced from clay pellets having a high proportion of aluminium and iron and fired up to 1200ο C. This product can be crushed to various sizes, and used as a biofilter media with combined phosphorus removal capacity, or as part of a treatment train where the LWA is used specifically for phosphate absorption. A bed of LWA used at the design loading rate, has a 15 year PO4 uptake capacity, after which it can be recycled as a soil conditioner, the original material being dug out and replaced with new material. This differs from the bauxite “amended” soil based PO4 treatment systems used in Australia at present, as the resulting bauxite product cannot be recycled when absorption capacity is reached. SUMMARY – THE BENEFITS of DECENTRALISED WASTEWATER SERVICING

In looking at the benefits of decentralised wastewater servicing in the Sydney context, Sarah identified six main areas: 1. Systems can be built as needed and paid for as they go. 2. Ties up less capital at any one time (ie with the cost of sewers representing some 80% of

total investment, this requires large initial expenditure for limited initial use). 3. Reduces forecasting risks. 4. Avoids the high cost of large collection systems. 5. Can target servicing upgrades to catchment clusters where on-site problems are

concentrated. 6. Provides for greater control over the waste stream (no trade wastes in household systems),

with greater opportunity for adding value and usability to effluent. It has become clear that the idea of going with a decentralised approach to wastewater servicing is finding a receptive audience amongst many of those in the fringe areas around Sydney. Although quite a proportion of residents in these “backlog” areas are quite happy to manage their own wastes, other residents want an invisible system managed by others. They do not care what system is adopted (centralised or decentralised) so long as there is the same level of service provided whatever system is in place. There is no doubt that the value of houses goes up when sewerage servicing is provided. The outcome of decentralised servicing is to ensure that similar value increases occur when a fully managed approach is adopted. Sarah provided a final quote from Richard Otis:

“What is so appealing about central sewerage is not the technologies or the costs; rather it is the public management that removes responsibility for system performance from the individual user. If on-site and cluster systems are to be an accepted alternative, they must be managed in such a way as to be as invisible to the user as central sewerage. Integrated wastewater management that includes conventional central sewerage as well as on-site [and decentralised] treatment is the paradigm that we must adopt” [if we are to successfully provide sewerage services in the future].

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APPENDIX E

Tips for Australian and New Zealand Colleagues

Planning an Overseas Study Tour: MAKING CONTACT Make extensive phone and email contact from Australia. It is cheaper at 6¢ per min from home using an international phone card than 30 to 90¢ per minute overseas. Phone calls are more often productive than emails:

you find out if person is at work, sick, on holidays etc learn more in shorter space of time get more contacts get a better feel for what is happening in the country creates a more personal bond with people you may later meet.

Avenues of information to find contacts:

Professional organisations Internet searches Newcastle University (UK) email listserver ie

<wastewater management@mailbase.ac.uk> USEPA decentralised sewerage listserver Australian email listservers – QLD DNR University lecturers Work colleagues Industry manufacturers Overseas universities Conference delegates Authors in the field

TIMING Don’t expect to do much business in northern Europe in July and early August – nearly EVERYONE is on holidays, prices are high and accommodation difficult to get if you haven’t booked ahead. The best times to travel are May, early June, September and October – people are at work. Begin a study tour with a conference, workshop or seminar

to meet the experts get a quick and concise feel for the industry and the country make friends – you may have the opportunity to stay with them which is an added

bonus Summers in northern Europe can be cool even with the long days ie 13° to 15° C at 10 am in Sweden in June in 2000 (though it was a cool summer even by their standards), twilight at midnight and broad daylight at 2.30 am (and they usually don’t have heavy curtains to keep the sun out !!). Winters are long, dark, foggy and cold ie sunrise at 9am & sunset at 3 pm in Scotland.

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Build in plenty of flexibility into your schedule for new meetings, new friends and new adventures. PHONE CALLS I used international phone cards at public phone boxes and in people’s homes:

all local calls are charged by the minute in Europe – 2 to 30 ¢ per minute I paid 30 to 90¢ per minute for international calls depending on the country some phone cards had a connection fee of 30 to 75¢ often I didn’t get through but the connection fee was still deducted especially in Sweden Sweden had poor connections from public phones and was expensive (90¢ per minute to

call Norway) Denmark had good connections and was cheap Germany had no international phone cards or none that I could find in the US different cards are needed across the country, many cards only work in one

state. However, the Net2Phone card was inexpensive and did have a good national coverage

I spent over $3,000 on business phone calls and $1,500 on internet access (not including phone calls back to Australia)

I used the Telstra Phoneaway card for calling back to Australia

very convenient with good Australian operator assistance uses Australian dollars can top up dollars with credit card approximately 36¢ per minute with no added connection fee voicemail facility – is a local call from anywhere within Australia if friends or relatives

want to leave a message. Next time I will buy a mobile phone

to have a voicemail service no need to find a public phone not inconveniencing my host no need to work out cost of timed local calls to reimburse host mobile phone cards are more available than public phone cards

However: most mobile phones and phone cards are country specific others incur a hefty roving fee can have a roving Telstra mobile which bills your home account

INTERNET The Australian modem card didn’t work overseas in my lap-top computer - it would have cost $250 (£100) for a UK modem card so I didn’t buy one. Internet-phone connection cost 2 to 30¢ per minute from private homes in Europe

this was too costly and messy to reimburse my host also too messy and costly to attempt this from the Bed & Breakfasts I stayed at – I’m

sure it is easier in larger hotels the most convenient but most costly way to access the Internet is using a specially set-

up mobile phone with the lap-top computer Internet cafés were a better option and in Europe were easily found in cafés, restaurants, department stores, hotels, computer shops, photocopy / communication shops, pubs, corner grocery stores or libraries. Internet access in libraries was free or minimal cost but with time

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limitation. There were very few Internet cafés in the USA as nearly everyone has the internet on at home. Internet cafés cost from $3 per hour in Denmark to $25 per hour in UK and USA CAR TRAVEL Hire cars: UK – Kennings $65 per day for 29 days plus petrol

automatic Fiat - good car pick up and return to Inverness, Scotland 3,500 km in 4 weeks around Scotland, England and Wales the poorly signed and complicated roads in the UK made driving by myself a

nightmare (Europe was a breeze in comparison – even with driving on the other side of the road)

Europe – Peugot Company

Peugot 406 automatic $45 per day for 77 days limited cities where car can be picked up I picked up and returned to Amsterdam drove 9,500 km in 11 weeks new car with very uncomfortable seats legally you own the car for the duration of the contract you pay for minor repairs yourself and get reimbursed on return of the car major repairs are paid for by the Peugot Company, but it is all very complicated and

you don’t get a replacement car if you have to wait a week or two for repairs to be done.

In retrospect I think it was false economy to hire cars from these less expensive companies (especially Peugot), for by paying a little more with another company I could have got frequent flyer points. Convenience of car travel:

essential to get to isolated places convenient for carrying books, presents, food and other comforts flexibility, not locked into public transport timetables and bookings.

Challenges of car travel:

cost of petrol - $1.50 to $2 per litre (when 65 to 85¢ here) driving on the other side of the road on the Continent difficult to buy maps – I often had to find a specialty map shop in major cities on the

Continent as not many petrol stations sold maps only street numbers (B34) on the road signs in UK not the name of the town that the

road leads to in Europe the road signs have numbers and town names it was much easier to navigate in Europe than the UK even though I don’t speak any

of the languages distances in the US are too large to drive across the country in just a couple of months

so I had 14 plane journeys in the US on my round-the-world ticket

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PLANE TRAVEL I purchased a Global Explorer round-the-world ticket with Qantas, British Airways and American Airlines (American Eagle) which was excellent (except American Airlines could not cope with me re-routing whereas British Airways had no problems at all) Features of the ticket at the time:

32,000 miles for $2,850 (base of 29,000 miles) extra blocks of 500 miles for $50 ($100 in late 2000) 15 stopovers (27 separate flights) fly in any direction unlimited (within the 15) stopovers in any one continent open dated tickets ticket valid for 12 months easy to change any dates at no extra cost paid AUS$75 to reroute the itinerary - which I did three times due to finding more

‘must see’ places limited destinations in the USA American Eagle had many cancelled flights due to mechanical problems

Extra cheap flights can be found via the Internet:

Easy Jet, British Midlands and Air Ryan in Europe Delta in the US also see www.lowestfare.com

MONEY VISA credit card:

very convenient in UK, USA and Scandinavia where all shops accepted VISA card some groceries stores will allow cash withdrawal on the credit card (unlike here) in rest of Europe Mastercard is more accepted, many shops would not accept VISA drawback is that there is no account balance on the ATM print out.

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