From Flush to Freshwater - NI's Latest Green Eco Loo

From flush to freshwater, Castle Archdale caravan park in County Fermanagh is setting new standards. The Environment Agency has leased land to NI Water for an integrated constructed wetland.

This is a fancy way of saying there are lots of plants and wildlife hard at work.

"This is a process for treating wastewater," said Dermott McCurdy from NI Water.

Biological processes are at work, source: BBC

"After you flush the loo in the caravan park, the wastewater makes its way to the inlet.

"There are two settlement ponds and that takes out about 30%, which settles to the bottom as sludge.

"It then flows into three ponds, which are only around 100mm (4in) depth."

It may sound shallow, but that amount of water is all it takes.

"In that depth of water, various things happen," Mr McCurdy explained.

"First of all, there are bacteria in there and they eat the wastewater.

"The root mass within the plants absorbs the nutrients and the metals and things like that if there are any, and there are very few metals from Castle Archdale."

He went on: "Then the ultraviolet light from the sun acts as well to kill off bacteria that you don't really want returning to the environment through the watercourse at the end.

"And by natural, biological processes of the plants and the sun and the action in the ground, the wastewater comes in one end, gets treated and goes out the other end, cleansed, back into the environment."

Read full article: BBC

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Taxonomy

• Treatment
• Treatment Methods
• Biological Treatment
• Biological Treatment
• Biology
• Integrated Water Management
• Freshwater
• Water Utility
• Water Management
• Utility Management