WEBVTT - The Future of Sewers 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.160 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.360 --> 0:00:14.640 Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:14.840 --> 0:00:17.560 podcast that looks at the future and says, I work 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:19.720 in the sewer. It's a very hard job. You know. 0:00:19.800 --> 0:00:24.240 They don't hire just any old slob. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:28.120 and I'm Joe McCormick, and you know, guys, recently, I 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:32.960 have been going back and watching The X Files. Okay, 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:35.440 I think it's pretty good thing to watch. It's on 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.800 Netflix right now. But some of my favorite episodes of 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:41.320 The X Files are the ones where Molder and Scully 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:44.320 end up descending into a sewer. Oh Man, Lukeman, one 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:47.239 of my favorite episodes of all time. That's maybe my 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:50.440 favorite monster design I can think of I've seen yet. 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:52.800 He looks he looks kind of like a like an 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:57.040 amphibian mummy. It's my second favorite monster design and X Files. 0:00:57.040 --> 0:00:58.760 But I don't know if you've gotten to my favorite. 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:01.160 And we'll talk about that some other times. Okay. Well, 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:03.400 and he was played as a guest star by Darren Morgan, 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:07.080 the amazing writer. Oh yeah, he wrote all my favorite episodes. 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:11.399 What what's the title of that episode? The host Anyway, 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:14.680 it got me thinking about sewers, though that's not the 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:17.880 reason we're doing this episode today. We're going to talk 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:20.919 about sewers. I was thinking about sewers because I recently 0:01:20.959 --> 0:01:24.280 saw you another production of Le Miserabla, but just two 0:01:24.280 --> 0:01:26.880 different pathways to the same test. Wait, no, hold on, 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:29.000 I thought you were making a slight against the lamb 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:30.880 is as a production, But no, you're talking about the 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:35.039 scenes in the sewers. Thenardier has the song dog eats 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:38.520 Dog in the sewer while he's rating bodies in the sewers. Yeah, 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:40.800 it's a very part warming love song. You know, there 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:43.760 are a lot of things people don't like to think about, 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:47.360 yet are absolutely crucial to our quality of life, but 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:50.400 also to the teenage mutan ninja turtles. Yes, yes, so, 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:54.840 like where your meat comes from or where your sewage 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:57.880 goes when you flush it, And it matters. But it 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:01.080 matters precisely because you don't don't want to have to 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:03.440 think about it or deal with it yourself. You want 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:05.640 to be able to get on with your life without 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:09.600 worrying about what's going to happen to human waste. Right, 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:13.200 you don't want to think about the possibility of having 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:16.960 to take a job as a night man. Those would 0:02:16.960 --> 0:02:21.120 be the the people who were hired in uh in 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:25.840 pre plumbing days to go and muck out cesspits with 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:29.160 buckets and then take them away from cities. Yeah yeah. 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:31.440 If if you've ever seen anything kind of like that 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:35.760 odd on micro's dirty jobs, then then then that that 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:39.320 is a by far more pleasant experience than what used 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:43.040 to go on before modern sewage. Right. Well, the first 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:45.960 point about this is that you should be thankful and 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:50.200 appreciative of your local sewage and water treatment workers. Yes, 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.840 thank you. But the second main point is that the 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:59.840 history of how we deal with sewage is remarkably interesting. Yeah. Fast, 0:03:00.840 --> 0:03:03.360 in nineteenth century London, I want to tell you this story. 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:07.720 In nineteenth century London, after the adoption of water closets 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.480 around the city, sewers that were originally designed to allow 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:15.040 rain runoff to drain into the Thames, the river that 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:18.280 runs through the center of London, suddenly started filling up 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.800 with human waste. And for for that, in various reasons, 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:25.520 all of this human waste was suddenly running into the 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:30.120 river in the center of town. And major river they 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:34.920 the the heart of London. Parliament is built right along 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:38.040 the town exactly right. So in the summer of eighteen 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:42.000 fifty eight, the stink of the river got so bad 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:44.760 that the members of Parliament could not put up with it. 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:47.360 They had to. They had to soak the curtains of 0:03:47.400 --> 0:03:50.960 the windows of Parliament with calcium hypochloride the stuff you 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.480 put in a swimming pool, and chlorine powder to try 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:57.600 to protect their delicate little nostrils from the poop smell. 0:03:58.200 --> 0:04:00.880 But within a couple of weeks Elament was turning out 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:04.560 legislation to modernize the sewage system of London. So then 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.480 this event was known as the Great Sting. If there's 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:10.080 a lesson to be learned from this podcast, y'all, it's 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:16.280 if you want something done Philip politician's room with poop, poop. No, 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:18.280 it doesn't have to be poop. I'm just you know 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:21.680 the Okay, The broader takeaway is, if you want something 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:25.680 done in a society, make it personally unpleasant to the politician, 0:04:25.839 --> 0:04:31.440 right anyway. Uh, the so, how do you revolutionize a 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:34.200 sewage system in a big city like London. Well, it 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:36.719 was an impressive engineering project and it was taken on 0:04:36.800 --> 0:04:39.880 by a guy named Joseph Basil Getty. I think I'm 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:41.640 not sure quite how you pronounce his name, but it's 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:44.240 b A z A l g E T t E. 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:46.279 I can I can guarantee you the way that the 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:49.520 Brits pronounced it is totally different from wherever that native 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:53.280 wherever wherever that that name is native to. And he 0:04:53.360 --> 0:04:56.800 was the head engineer of London's Metropolitan Board of Works. 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:00.880 So Basil Getty oversaw the construction of drink edge systems 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:04.040 that interlocked throughout the city and they would divert waste 0:05:04.120 --> 0:05:08.120 away from London and into a downstream estuary, so all 0:05:08.200 --> 0:05:10.640 of the human waste is draining away from the city 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:14.800 instead of into the centera directly. Yeah, so that was 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:17.840 especially bad by the way when they were draining into 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:20.400 the river, because they were also getting their drinking water 0:05:20.520 --> 0:05:23.680 from the river, and this was the time of Cholerado. 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:29.440 There was actually a in the article you site, there 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:32.920 was an illustration that an artist made at the time 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:37.960 of the Thames showing London it's children and it's children 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:41.440 were three diseases, one of which was cholera. Yeah, that's right. 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:44.240 And actually that article I want to site because where 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:46.799 I read about this was in a slate Atlas Obscura 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:50.760 article that was mainly highlighting actually how beautiful some of 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:56.040 the pumping stations constructed during this sewage renovation were. And 0:05:56.080 --> 0:06:00.640 looking at these pictures, there are some truly gorgeous places 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:04.039 in London that were created to funnel human feces. Yeah, 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:06.720 in fact, I'm not kidding, they're beautiful. I've seen them. 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:09.400 They do look really amazing. You can actually tour some 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:12.000 of them. In fact, one of them is rentable. You 0:06:12.040 --> 0:06:16.520 can rent it for parties or for and I'm quoting 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:18.320 the article, I don't know if this is actually on 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:22.760 the website for the the the pumping station for viral videos. 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:27.280 So one of the other funny things is that the 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:29.640 equipment at some of these pump stations, well they ran 0:06:29.680 --> 0:06:31.760 on steam. This is Victorian era, so it was all 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:35.520 steam pumps and at one location, Cross Nest, the pumps 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:38.799 were named after the royal family, so each of the 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:41.880 the Queen Victoria pump and the Prince Consort pump because 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:47.880 royals are used to push and crap around. I guess yeah, 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:49.599 I thought it was funny too, But now that the 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:53.560 pumps themselves are enormous, which not a big surprise when 0:06:53.600 --> 0:06:56.560 you consider what job they have to do. And also 0:06:56.640 --> 0:07:00.160 steam technology a little bit more clunky. Yeah, And the 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:03.839 design of the actual stations has kind of this Moorish 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:10.320 patterns worked into the Byzantine and beautifully painted. It's it's 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.200 remarkable that something that you would think most people would 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:18.320 never ever see is still so ornate Victoria. That's the 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:21.080 way that Victorians did things, y'all. Well, I do think 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:26.120 it's very impressive and it gets one thinking about how 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:31.440 monumental this task is of removing all of the waste 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:34.200 that we produce and don't want to see and don't 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:36.320 want to smell, and don't want to think about, and 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:38.080 still have to get rid of in some way. Yeah, 0:07:38.120 --> 0:07:42.240 And so taking all that away in a way that's efficient, effective, 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:45.640 doesn't break down, doesn't stink up the place, and doesn't 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:50.800 cause disease and unsanitary conditions. Sure, and so that kind 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:53.440 of brings us up to well, so how do we 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.320 do that now? Like what's our current state of affairs 0:07:56.360 --> 0:08:00.800 with with sewer systems? And it really depends um. Actually, 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:03.640 there are a lot of sewer systems out there, especially 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:07.440 with older cities where the sewer systems haven't really been 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:11.640 updated that much since they were first built. Um, in fact, 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:14.360 to our city, Atlanta, it's not that old of a city, 0:08:14.480 --> 0:08:16.520 especially if you consider that it was it was burned 0:08:16.520 --> 0:08:20.720 down at once. But the sewer system still is in 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:25.440 some places and badly need of repair, maintenance, upgrading, that 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:28.320 kind of thing. Um in fact, so much so that 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:30.880 there have been some really well publicized criticisms of the 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.760 sewer system here in Atlanta and how badly needs to improve. 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:37.400 There was a deadline for the city to finish mandatory upgrades, 0:08:37.400 --> 0:08:41.280 which was a federal mandate because of the water quality 0:08:41.320 --> 0:08:44.880 in the Chattahoochee UH and UH other rivers around it 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:48.000 the Atlanta area as well. The mandate said that by 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:50.960 July first, two thousand and fourteen, this big list of 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.480 upgrades had to happen. It was not gonna happen by 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:56.960 July first, two thousand and fourteen, and so the city 0:08:57.000 --> 0:09:00.760 applied for an extension, and after some a the judge 0:09:00.800 --> 0:09:05.319 granted it, and now the deadline is two thousand, twenty 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:10.160 seven to get those mandatory updates upgrades in place. And 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:12.600 according to the city, the real reason and extension was 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:14.920 needed in the first place, the reason why the upgrades 0:09:14.920 --> 0:09:17.800 had not happened was due to financial constraints. They just 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:20.000 didn't have the money in the budget to dedicate to 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:24.000 sewage system upgrades. UM. This was despite the fact that 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:28.440 the sewage rates in Atlanta increased significantly over the last 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:31.720 several years. I think it originally was somewhere around sixty 0:09:31.720 --> 0:09:33.439 dollars a month and went up to like a hundred 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:36.720 and fifty a month for some places. And there's a 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:38.959 fear that after two thousand and sixteen they're going to 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:41.960 go up again in order to try and make these 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:45.880 mandatory upgrades happen on schedule, even as far out as 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:48.360 two thousand twenty seven. So this is a monumental task. 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:53.720 These are enormous infrastructure pieces that are not there. They're 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:57.880 hard to access, right they're underground, so that doesn't make 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:02.719 it any easier, and they're everywhere, so it's tough. Um 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:05.400 And in fact that Atlanta still has some combined sewer lines, 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:07.520 which are not a good idea. You want to have 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:11.000 separate sewer lines. Combined sewer lines essentially means that the 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:14.440 sewer lines you have for your wastewater, your human waste, 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:17.679 and the sewer lines you would have to deal with 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.760 runoff like rainwater or if a water main were to 0:10:20.760 --> 0:10:24.360 break or something. That they're combined into one system, and 0:10:24.400 --> 0:10:27.280 that means if it's a really heavy rain, that system 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:31.120 can overflow, which means untreated waste can seep into the 0:10:31.160 --> 0:10:35.439 water table. That makes me wonder if that has anything 0:10:35.480 --> 0:10:37.720 to do with If you're out taking a walk after 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:40.800 a very heavy rain in Atlanta and you sometimes smell 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:44.240 sewage e smell, that would likely be the problem. That 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:47.680 these are pipes that have overflowed flowed, and they are 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.520 this combined sewage type. Not all neighborhoods in Atlanta still 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:53.800 have these. A lot of them have been upgraded, but 0:10:53.880 --> 0:10:57.360 there's still some historic neighborhoods that have not yet been upgraded. 0:10:57.559 --> 0:10:59.240 And by the way, I know I'm talking a lot 0:10:59.280 --> 0:11:02.240 about Atlanta, this is not unique to Atlanta. This is 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:06.120 just an example of a problem that lots of cities have. Uh. 0:11:06.160 --> 0:11:07.920 There there are a lot of cities that after a 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:11.199 hard reign you might be familiar with certain stinky kind 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:15.000 of sewage e smells And it's probably because they too 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:19.679 have some combined sewer lines and they have this overflow issue. Uh. Now, 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:22.800 they're basic structure of a sanitary sewer also sometimes called 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:25.680 a foul sewer, which is funny because those seem like 0:11:25.720 --> 0:11:30.080 contradictions sanitary and foul. Um. It's a series of underground 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:34.080 tunnels and passageways that serve as a transportation system for sewage, 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:37.319 for wastewater, and human waste. You can think of sewers 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:39.360 kind of like a tree, So the pipes that go 0:11:39.520 --> 0:11:42.080 from your home are like the twigs that meet up 0:11:42.120 --> 0:11:44.720 with larger pipes in the neighborhood. Those would be the branches. 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:49.400 Those eventually empty out into the main sewer lines also 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:53.559 called the trunk mains, so that's the main the largest ones, 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:58.400 usually several feet in diameter um those lead to water 0:11:58.480 --> 0:12:01.560 treatment plants, and will get more on those in a second. 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:05.000 But this isn't all just moving due to gravity, No, No, 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:09.000 Mostly you try to design a sewer system so that 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:11.679 gravity does as much of the work as possible. So 0:12:11.760 --> 0:12:15.120 you would normally put whatever whatever treatment facility is at 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:19.240 the lowest end of an elevation and let gravity do 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:20.520 a lot of the work for you. But that's not 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.720 always possible, and it's you know, it's not always convenient. 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:26.440 Atlanta is a city that has lots of hills in it. 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:28.960 It's not always easy for you to direct waste to 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:31.480 go specifically where you want it to go. Sometimes you 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:33.480 have to give it a little help. And so there 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:36.720 are pumps or there are lifting stations that will continue 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:39.920 to move waste, water and waste along to get to 0:12:39.960 --> 0:12:45.240 the destination. Um So, depending upon the geographic nature of 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:47.839 the city and also the ground underneath it. Right, if 0:12:47.840 --> 0:12:50.600 you hit like really rocky ground and that that presents 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.880 a problem, um you you may have to have pumps 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:58.560 to facilitate this. Now the sewers are covered. That means 0:12:58.600 --> 0:13:02.720 that the components are almost all underground, with the exception 0:13:02.760 --> 0:13:06.800 of the wastewater treatment plants, and those are in sealed pathways. 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:09.960 And that's to limit any interaction between the sewage and 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:13.360 the environment, because that is a bad thing. You don't 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.880 want that to happen. Um. And that's very different from 0:13:16.920 --> 0:13:21.040 the open sewers that preceded these kind of systems, which 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:26.560 were obviously uh breeding grounds for disease and could cause 0:13:27.000 --> 0:13:29.280 lots of issues, not just quality of life, but I 0:13:29.280 --> 0:13:33.960 mean could be a significant health risk factor in a city. 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:38.560 So the sewage ends up heading toward some sort of 0:13:38.600 --> 0:13:44.360 wastewater treatment facility. Yes, yeah, in in developed countries, you 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.760 usually have like some sort of wastewater facility that is 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:53.480 working on um some scale of sophistication. They're generally speaking, 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:58.000 three different processes you can go through in order to 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:01.480 to remove waste from water and eat it. And depending 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:03.840 upon the sophistication of the plant, it may do one 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:07.120 or two or all three of those, and they are 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:10.760 in a specific order, so uh, they actually have names 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:14.240 of primary, secondary, and tertiary. UM. And you want this 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:17.520 because if you don't treat the wastewater, it doesn't just 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:19.960 smell bad like we said, it causes disease. There are 0:14:19.960 --> 0:14:21.880 a lot of types of bacteria that can be found 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:25.240 in human waste, including stuff like E. Coli. Even if 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:27.720 you yourself aren't sick, you can have bacteria in your 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:30.680 in the waste you produce that could make people sick. 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:35.120 Um and organic material in wastewater would end up being 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:39.680 like a big old buffet feast for all sorts of bacteria. 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:43.640 And that bacteria in turn consumes oxygen while it's eating 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:47.360 the organic matter. Now, if that organic matter happens to 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:51.120 be in water, that means the oxygen supply of that 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:54.640 water gets depleted, which means anything living in that water, 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:57.960 like fish, have less oxygen available to them, so they 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:03.200 could actually suffocate in their own environment. Um. Also, wastewater 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.520 has nitrogen and phosphates in it that can end up 0:15:06.840 --> 0:15:09.840 promoting the growth of algae which can block sunlight. It 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:14.520 can also foul waterways, so that's an issue. And uh, this, 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:17.640 this can become a catastrophe. Right, this can end up 0:15:17.760 --> 0:15:23.320 causing enormous issues all along the way, not just for people, 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:29.360 but for the general Uh yeah, ecosystem around the city. Yeah. 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:32.480 So these wastewater plants, like I said, have these three 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:36.920 main methods of treating the stuff that comes out through 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:39.040 the sewers. Yeah, so I'm going to guess the first 0:15:39.120 --> 0:15:42.560 method has something to do with those big pools we 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:48.480 see around the water treatment plants. You would be correct. So, uh, now, 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:50.000 have you ever lived in a place that had a 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:54.520 septic tank? Yeah? I have? I I have you, Joe 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:56.040 or def you always lived in a place that had 0:15:56.120 --> 0:15:59.400 sewer systems. We always had sewer systems. You're lucky. Uh, 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.120 septic tanks no fun. But the way a septic tank 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:04.840 works is in general the same way that the primary 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:10.440 means of of removing waste from wastewater works in that 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:14.200 it allows solid waste to settle at the bottom. Anything 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:16.400 that is lighter than water floats on the top in 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:21.000 what is called scum for obvious reasons, and then the 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:25.840 water in the middle is relatively free of waste. I 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:29.160 say relatively because there's still bacteria. There's still other things 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:32.000 like phosphates and nitrates in there um, and so you 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:34.800 can treat that water, usually with something like chlorine, and 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:36.880 kill off a lot of that and allow the water 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:39.120 to pass through the system. So septic tanks, a lot 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:42.680 of them are designed to drain, but they retain the 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:45.960 solid wastes and the scum. It's just the water that 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:48.320 they allowed to go through. If they in fact, they 0:16:48.360 --> 0:16:50.800 can be treated and then eventually you have to have 0:16:50.800 --> 0:16:52.800 someone come in and pump out all the solid waste 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:56.240 that accumulates, because it will eventually get to a level 0:16:56.280 --> 0:16:59.440 that you have to have that happen. Uh. Similar to 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:03.400 that is this primary treatment approach, where these large pools 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:08.280 are where it allows organic matter to sink to the bottom, 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.160 scum floats to the top, and then the water will 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:14.919 flow into a secondary holding pool and this process is 0:17:14.960 --> 0:17:18.640 repeated as it goes from pool to pool each stage, 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:23.000 removing more and more of this particulate matter the pooh 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:25.320 in other words, and it gets rid of quite a 0:17:25.320 --> 0:17:27.239 lot of it, really, yeah, quite a lot of it, 0:17:27.320 --> 0:17:30.960 although not as much as you might want before discharging 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:33.280 it into your local water supply, because it can be 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:38.320 around half total of all the solids, organic material and 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:43.000 bacteria from wastewater. So now keep in mind that there 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:46.320 are a lot of wastewater plants that this is their 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:49.880 only real means of treating the wastewater. There are more 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:53.600 sophisticated plants that then have a secondary approach which involves 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:57.159 removing more organic materials and nutrients by introducing bacteria to 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:00.160 the water on purpose. So this is still with then 0:18:00.160 --> 0:18:02.439 the water treatment plan. It's not released out into the 0:18:02.440 --> 0:18:06.440 wild yet. They use aerated tanks because again the bacteria 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:10.280 need oxygen as well, and they allow the bacteria to 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.400 just chop down on all that organic matter that's inside there, 0:18:13.840 --> 0:18:16.720 and then they move that water to settling tanks to 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:19.040 separate the bacteria from the water because you don't want 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:22.040 to release the bacteria into the wild. And that approach 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:25.760 can remove up to the solids and organic materials and wastewater, 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:28.240 which again you have to treat with like chlorine or something, 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:31.960 and then you release it out the third stages the 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:37.119 tertiary treatment. Uh Yeah, very easily easy to remember because 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:39.719 you know, if they have all three, it's primary, secondary, 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:42.119 in tertiary, tertiary. There are actually a couple of different 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.320 approaches to it, but in general, it's using more chemicals 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:47.720 to remove stuff like nitrogen and phosphorus from the water 0:18:47.800 --> 0:18:50.840 and also could include filtration systems to clean the water 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:55.120 as much as possible before again discharging it. So uh, 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.840 in developed nations, you usually see ones that have at 0:18:58.920 --> 0:19:01.119 least two, if not all three of these. Some of 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:05.160 them may only have one, but they're all used to 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:08.520 remove as much waste as possible. Now here's the thing. 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:11.600 You remove all that solid waste, you allow it to 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:13.359 settle at the bottom. You still got to do something 0:19:13.400 --> 0:19:15.560 with it. You know, it can't just sit there forever. 0:19:15.800 --> 0:19:21.040 Plasma waste converters, That's what I said. Yeah, plasma stolen 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:23.440 your thunder. No, No, it's perfect. That would that would 0:19:23.440 --> 0:19:25.280 be ideal if you could, if you could create a 0:19:25.280 --> 0:19:29.240 plasma waste converter facility. Now granted, ideally you would have 0:19:29.240 --> 0:19:31.919 a plasma waste converter facility that was adjacent both to 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:35.840 a wastewater treatment plant and a landfill, which otherwise would 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:38.880 be the worst neighborhood in town. But but this would 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:41.560 allow you to do things like take that organic waste, 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:43.959 put it into a plasma waste converter, which would then 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:47.840 plasma ify the material. It would gasify it because it's 0:19:47.880 --> 0:19:51.280 it's carbon base, it's organic. Uh. That gas could be 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:54.159 used to create sin gas, which is a fuel that 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:58.720 you could use to generate electricity, possibly even enough electricity 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:01.000 to keep running the plasma ice converter if you had 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:03.920 enough material to put into the furnace. You probably wouldn't 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:07.639 with a waste management facility because you wouldn't be removing 0:20:07.720 --> 0:20:11.000 the solid waste that frequently. I would imagine you would 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.040 allow it to accumulate a little bit. But with a 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:15.920 handy dandy landfill, Yeah, with the landfill next door, then 0:20:15.960 --> 0:20:19.800 you could just start mining the landfill for fuel. This 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:22.199 is not how we deal with solid waste right now, 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:24.840 by the way, We mostly just dump the solid waste 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:28.360 in a landfill or we incinerate it. Both of those 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:33.200 obviously have environmental impact, yes, less environmental impact than just 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:35.800 letting it hang out in the water. Yeah, but still 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:40.000 and and different from that too, but still yeah, yeah, still, 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:43.119 I agreed. It is not the same at all as 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:47.840 just letting the waste flow into the rivers of the world. Right, 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:50.520 So this is all what's going on right now in 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:55.159 developed countries. But what about in developing nations? Yeah, so 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:01.240 for billions of people, this is a real current issue, 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:05.160 of serious problem there. They're more than two billion people 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:10.720 who do not have access to sanitary waste treatment infrastructure 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:14.400 at all. Um. A lot of developing countries lack any 0:21:14.480 --> 0:21:17.400 sort of organized sewer system, or they might have open sewers, 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:21.119 and as we've established, those are ongoing health hazards. Uh. 0:21:21.160 --> 0:21:23.480 There are a lot of charities that are dedicated to 0:21:23.960 --> 0:21:27.359 trying well, not just charities, but foundations and organizations that 0:21:27.440 --> 0:21:30.320 are dedicated to trying to make a difference in this 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:35.080 and to create ways for various nations to create to 0:21:35.240 --> 0:21:39.320 to build these infrastructures, these sewer infrastructures and treatment facilities. 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:42.760 So there's the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. You probably 0:21:42.800 --> 0:21:45.600 have heard of Bill Gates, one of the creators of 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:49.600 Microsoft UM and you know he is. He and his 0:21:49.680 --> 0:21:54.600 wife have famously dedicated billions of their dollars to various causes, 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:57.400 and the Bill and Gates, the Bill and Melinda Gates 0:21:57.440 --> 0:22:00.119 Foundation rather has spent a lot of this time and 0:22:00.280 --> 0:22:04.560 money on trying to bring clean sewer infrastructure to developing nations. 0:22:04.880 --> 0:22:06.960 Their web page points out and that these are are 0:22:07.119 --> 0:22:09.800 facts that come from the United Nations that there are 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:11.840 about two and a half billion people in the world 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:16.800 who practice open defecation or lack adequate sanitation facilities. So 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:20.760 two and a half billion people, it's hard to imagine 0:22:21.000 --> 0:22:25.240 living where we live and having access to that all 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:28.560 our lives. It is it's hard to imagine that. I mean, 0:22:28.600 --> 0:22:32.879 that's a staggering number. So another two billion rely on 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:35.880 septic tanks that aren't safely maintained, or they're using other 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:39.040 systems that dispose of raw sewage by essentially draining it 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:42.439 into like open systems like fields or rivers or whatever. 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:46.240 So they're in a condition that is similar to the 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:48.840 one that you were talking about with London back in 0:22:48.920 --> 0:22:53.320 the nineteenth century. So the United Nations has a division 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:56.560 called U n Water dedicated to bringing solutions to fresh 0:22:56.600 --> 0:23:00.520 water issues, including sanitation. It's not solely focused on that, 0:23:00.600 --> 0:23:03.800 but that's under its purview, and their purpose is to 0:23:03.840 --> 0:23:07.560