They are supposedly a way to treat wastewater without using chemicals, but instead by creating an "ecosystem", whose constituent organisms filter the water. I gathered from this paper http://www.uvm.edu/rsenr/nr385c/resources/documents/The%20design%20of%20living%20technologies%20for%20waste%20treatment.pdf
that "the ideal closed system as having three major components or subsystems. It consists of a sunlight-based,
photosynthetically driven system that is connected to an animal consumer component, which in turn, is connected to a detritus/bacterial system.
Our experience supports the Adey and Loveland (1991) requirement of a minimum of three distinct subecosystems. We have found it is best to house the subsystems in distinct cells separated in space but connected by flows."
He has a company: http://www.toddecological.com/eco-machines/
which installs these for a fee....Can anyone comment on if this is a viable method for the future? It seems almost "too good to be true" - an all natural way to deal with the waste products of society purely relying on "natural" processes..
http://www.toddecological.com/eco-machines/
http://www.uvm.edu/rsenr/nr385c/resources/documents/The%20design%20of%20living%20technologies%20for%20waste%20treatment.pdf
Hi Jacob,
I just posted an answer and then YOURS popped up. I am NOT an expert or anything BUT the thing made by Johann Grander is used by MANY companies in Germany. They use it to LOWER use of chlorine in swimmingpools, but still maintaining the SAME low levels of unwanted bacteria. In ponds it lowers growth of algae. You can go to the site and freely order material to read. I find it VERY interesting and want to research it. Maybe you could perhaps try it out? I would love to know the result on waste water. In Denmark a few adventurous farmers use it in production. They treat the waste from pigs. When they (previously) fertilized their fields they normally got the proverbial "f*** finger" from bypassing neighbours. THE STENCH(!) Well.. after using the "rods" they don't get the stench. The farmer even tells that he gets a higher yield. The plants get bigger/stronger roots. SO... I think you might test it! It will suppress the stuff you don't want but be beneficial to the organisms you DO WANT. You might write me off as a lunatic ;-) but if you DO give it a shot - PLEASE let me know! For more info you can find my posted question and read some of the text.
Regards
Liz
Jacob, the answer to your question is yes. Bio-remediation is not "too good to be true" but rather it is the "natural" answer to most wastewater treatment requirements from a theoretical standpoint. The primary issues with all "living machines" whether constructed by nature or Dr. Todd (or myself or anyone else :-) is that if they are allowed to take up their "natural" footprint, they are large. In addition, because you are moving beyond the natural process of nature taking it's time to handle whatever has been added to the water, generally due to need for consistent results, there will be varying degrees of requirement to monitor the conditions of the wetlands and engage various levels of intervention if conditions start going sideways. The more concentrated the bio-remediation activity is the more monitoring will be required. The other requirement of any bio-remediation system is time, which can also be "compressed" but again at the cost of more monitoring and deliberate intervention. At a very simplified level, a typical septic system is also a bio-remediation system, relying heavily on anaerobic bacteria to break down wastes (just as in a bio-digester) and aerobic bacteria (soil based) from the leach field to do in a two step process what Dr. Todd preferentially does in a 4 step process. I prefer the four (or more) step processes myself. Obviously there is much more to discuss on this subject, but there's your short answer.
In principle, I think that John Todd has the right idea about how society should handle waste products, i.e., by emulating nature in which all wastes are productively recycled. I have seen Todd's living machines applied at the scale of a waste treatment system set-up in a canal in Suzhou, China. The principle of ecological recycle of agricultural wastes is also being widely applied now in China, especially for the recycle of animal wastes (CAFOs) in which the waste stream from animals is coupled with a bio digester and subsequent use of biogas for cooking and electricity, while coupling the bio digester liquids and residues to ponds, fish, and orchards to produce food. The key to success of these endeavors is that the scale of the processing system must match the size of the waste stream, which means that there must be enough land or water to productively match the intensity of the waste source. Maintaining some flexibility to adjust the waste stream is a good strategy to help insure successful treatment. The question of whether "living machines" are a viable solution for society in the long run remains open as far as I am concerned. To answer this question we need to perform quantitative analyses of the performance of the various systems applied on different scales to determine net costs and benefits to society. The best analysis method to use to determine overall efficacy for society is emery evaluation developed by H. T. Odum and his colleagues (Odum 1996) and numerous publications in the literature, including some of ecological recycle agriculture in China.
www.emergysystems.org
Hi Jacob,
I suggest that you check out a book by William Mitsch and Sven Jørgensen called "Ecological Engineering and Ecosystem Restoration", published by Wiley in 2004. The first 1/3 of the book deals with the principles of the field, but the last 2/3 is essentially a laundry list of case studies of different applications and project goals across varying spatial scales and distributions. I feel it very nicely makes the argument that, yes, these sorts of methods are viable, if perhaps slower than "traditional" wastewater management processes, though I am by no means an expert on this subject.
Yes, it works. It presents an outstanding example of ecotechnology in action! Dr. Todd & his comp. have successfully shown its down-to-earth application in different organizations which you can find on the web. Following treatment using such living technology the polished wastewater can be converted into resources if aquaponics or hydroponics are linked with the integrated system. Thus it can help reduce the pollutants load, but also it can be coupled with bioregenerative production with less financial involvement. The essence is there is no 'waste' in nature's dictionary, its resource to some other organism. Through teamwork of the the unsung heroes of nature's library waste can be converted into wealth, refuse into resources!
- Badges
- Science method
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Ecology