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Environmental Action: €20,000,000 are more them enough ...
Bonaire Talk: Environmental Action: Archives 2008-2009: €20,000,000 are more them enough ...
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Detlef SCHWAGER (BonaireTalker - Post #59) on Wednesday, October 8, 2008 - 4:32 pm:     Edit PostPrint Post

Subject: €20,000,000 are more them enough to create on whole Bonaire sustainable sanitation system!

How to do?

By SEPARATING “at the beginning” and TREATING SEPARATED you will be able to have on the whole island a sustainable sanitation system with income generation to! Not only servicing a small strip along the beach of the main town with given €20,000,000 gift.

This can be possible if you only keep some SIMPLE BASICS in mind: Do NOT MIX most as possible all types of waste-water's with-each-other. Have source SEPARATION “at the beginning”, to handle Yellow, Brown (flush-water=contaminated drinking water makes approx. 30% of total sewage) and Grey-water (70%) separate in a simple way, by avoiding to have a large volume of Black-water (sewage) in the end. Save permanent your money and keep control over your future regular spending by creating a “CIRCLE” by re-using grey-waters most as possible.
If toilets are flushed: approx. 30% of total sewage volume becomes Black-water, of this volume only 1.4% is Yellow-water (Urine = 82% of N, 50% of P) and only 0.2% of that volume is Brown-water ([poo-poo] Faeces = only 8% of N, 25% of P). Much less contaminated are the Grey-water (10% of N, 25% of P) from showers/baths, which have approx. 70% of total sewage volume. If you were able to separate kitchen waste-water to (if kitchen is very often in use), this would be most optimal but not always necessary, if you only live like a bachelor on pre-processed food ;-)

Note: All in all, ”flush & forget” and “end of pipe” approaches becoming unnecessary very expensive/complex and energy demanding, if small wet volumes of “Yellows & Browns” (1.4+0.2%) with high levels of Nitrates (N), Phosphorus (P) and Pathogens are mixed with much larger volumes of Flush and Grey-waters (30 + 70%) with have relative low nutrients & pathogen levels. For special Bonaire conditions, if ALL is mixed and energy demanding pumped to a centralised treatment plant far away, it will become after first level reduction of N (down to 28 mg/l) by regular SBR high-tech treatment, even necessary to use further very complex and costly (approx. M€4 of 20) "filtering-out” of N, in order to lower N-level of effluent (irrigation-water for beachfront) down to Bonaire’s new standard (< 5 mg/l N restriction), to protect Bonaire's natural “incomes-generators”.

Suggested “SOFTWARE” (More important them any “hardware”!)
To come to this sustainable sanitation system, the start-up and implementation should be very sensible to the different sanitation needs (e.g. make maximum use of existing systems like septic tanks, even if they are leaking by now = cost reduction), by having a STEP-WISE approach all together with strict time tables and deadlines, which includes always as a start-up small “trails and errors” and maximum COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION ("software"). Then taking it from there very careful further through "learning by doing" to a larger scale of implementation. Having through that process people made understand to the not so very-new approaches (but very-very-new on Bonaire). The future beneficiaries should make their first hand experiences by them self and not only being told what to do, or just only being told to pay and “shut-up” most as possible. This kind of democratic involvement’s will result in a TRANSPARENT DECISION making process and generate great support by many, but not by all of course…

Suggested “HARDWARE”
- Use in large scale the often too much sun & wind on Bonaire: by DEHYDRATION of Urine & Faeces (yellows & browns) at sources. After dehydration not smelly anymore and very-very small in volume. Pathogens are widely destroyed. (e.g., tumble-dryer-toilet, made in RSA http://is.gd/3Ezn)

- „State-of-the-art” but simple COMPOSTING facility central at LVV that receives collected or semi-central or even in your own backyard garden to compost collected dry faeces and organic garden and kitchen leftovers. (composting guidelines: http://is.gd/3brY and http://is.gd/3bA7)

- Soil (Compost) use after 1-2 years of composting. Do not use soil near beach-areas as it is very rich on Nutrients (N and P), only use it at inland for trees and animal food production, NOT DIRECT for GARDENING/AGRICULTURE for human consumption (income generation).

- GREY-WATER-RECYCLING’S at source (ON-SIDE) via „State-of-the-art” but SIMPLE Constructed Wetlands CW (“natural plant”, vertical-flow Reed-Bed sand-gravel-filter without open water surface, (e.g.,: www.aqua-nostra.de in Germany, 15 people need approx. 30 qm) if space is allowing, integrate CW’s in existing tropical gardens, or create via CW’s. If space is very limited AND high frequented like good restaurants, use so called “technical plants”, separated one for Grey-water treatments and one separated for Black-water treatments, as Captain Don is promoting since years (pre-fab example “wet & pure” made in NL http://is.gd/3ExV). More information on general grey-water management: http://is.gd/3bCX

- RE-USE own Grey-water (with very low N-level from CW’s outflow: < 3 mg/l N and < 4 mg/l P) near source (on-side) as irrigation-water for your own gardening near beach and more inland for agriculture without < 5 mg/l N restrictions (INCOME GENERATION !).

FREE OF COPYRIGHT ;-)

By Detlef SCHWAGER, Friend of Bonaire and Tropical Water-Engineer from F.R. of Germany; 08.October 2008
E-mail: 4detlef@web.de

 

Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Detlef SCHWAGER (BonaireTalker - Post #60) on Thursday, October 9, 2008 - 2:50 am:     Edit PostPrint Post

my picture

Explanation of picture: If toilets are flushed: 30% of total sewage volume is Black-water, of this only 1.4% is Yellow-water (urine) and only 0.2% of that volume is brown water (faeces). Much less contaminated is Grey-water with 70% of total sewage volume. It becomes an expensive exercise further down if this small amounts of yellow and brown waters are mixed with Flush-water and Grey-water.

 


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