1
00:00:01,120 --> 00:00:03,400
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My

2
00:00:03,600 --> 00:00:12,720
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.

3
00:00:12,800 --> 00:00:16,079
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there,

4
00:00:16,160 --> 00:00:20,919
Speaker 1: and Jerry just ghosted us like a catfish. The bank

5
00:00:21,040 --> 00:00:23,880
Speaker 1: is how they put it, and uh, that of course

6
00:00:23,960 --> 00:00:28,080
Speaker 1: makes the Stuff you Should Know from the abyss. How

7
00:00:28,160 --> 00:00:32,680
Speaker 1: you doing, man, I'm just doing great. Everything is totally normal.

8
00:00:32,920 --> 00:00:36,080
Speaker 1: Everything feels comfortable and fun, so I'm good. How about you?

9
00:00:36,320 --> 00:00:40,559
Speaker 1: Have you done anything really weird in the last two weeks? Uh?

10
00:00:41,920 --> 00:00:44,839
Speaker 1: I think a more legit question would be, what have

11
00:00:44,920 --> 00:00:49,519
Speaker 1: I not done that's that's weird? What's the weirdest thing

12
00:00:49,520 --> 00:00:52,080
Speaker 1: you've done? I'm trying to think like I shouldn't have

13
00:00:52,120 --> 00:00:54,400
Speaker 1: said anything, because I really haven't done anything that weird.

14
00:00:54,440 --> 00:00:58,560
Speaker 1: Have just been more like, um, I've developed this weird

15
00:00:58,720 --> 00:01:02,680
Speaker 1: kind of I guess it's indigestion, which I don't get.

16
00:01:02,760 --> 00:01:06,399
Speaker 1: I have like an iron constitution, but I don't know

17
00:01:06,400 --> 00:01:08,960
Speaker 1: if it's because I've been pounding vitamins lately and they

18
00:01:09,040 --> 00:01:11,840
Speaker 1: keep lodging in this one spot in my esophagus. I

19
00:01:11,840 --> 00:01:14,800
Speaker 1: think there's a weird bend in there somewhere um, and

20
00:01:14,840 --> 00:01:17,840
Speaker 1: so I constantly feel like I've got some throw up

21
00:01:17,920 --> 00:01:21,039
Speaker 1: just sitting in the middle of my chest. That's a

22
00:01:21,080 --> 00:01:24,039
Speaker 1: new development. And I've noticed that when I don't take

23
00:01:24,120 --> 00:01:28,680
Speaker 1: vitamins it still happens. So I'm I'm kind of up

24
00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:30,720
Speaker 1: the creek on that respect. And I know that's not

25
00:01:30,800 --> 00:01:34,280
Speaker 1: doing anything weird, but um, I mean, I guess that

26
00:01:34,520 --> 00:01:37,840
Speaker 1: aside from that and setting out box traps for coyotes

27
00:01:38,000 --> 00:01:40,200
Speaker 1: and then eating the coyotes when I catch them, those

28
00:01:40,240 --> 00:01:43,120
Speaker 1: are the two weirdest things, right, It's not bad. What

29
00:01:43,200 --> 00:01:46,040
Speaker 1: about you. I haven't really done anything weird. I shaved.

30
00:01:46,040 --> 00:01:47,960
Speaker 1: I shaved my head, but that was just because I

31
00:01:48,040 --> 00:01:53,960
Speaker 1: was bored and hot. Nice Britney spears. Yeah, I mean

32
00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:55,600
Speaker 1: I haven't. You know, usually do that once a year,

33
00:01:55,600 --> 00:01:57,240
Speaker 1: and I haven't done it in a few years for

34
00:01:57,280 --> 00:02:00,360
Speaker 1: some reason. So, yeah, it has been a little while

35
00:02:00,480 --> 00:02:03,080
Speaker 1: you've been rocking the grown out stuff. I know. I

36
00:02:03,120 --> 00:02:05,920
Speaker 1: thought about shaving my beard too, just for funzies, but oh,

37
00:02:06,960 --> 00:02:08,480
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think now is the time to

38
00:02:08,480 --> 00:02:10,400
Speaker 1: try these weird things where no one's gonna see you

39
00:02:10,480 --> 00:02:14,160
Speaker 1: for six weeks. Yeah. As a matter of fact, after

40
00:02:14,480 --> 00:02:16,640
Speaker 1: we get done recording, I have a date with you

41
00:02:16,760 --> 00:02:19,280
Speaker 1: me to go cut my hair because I've got the

42
00:02:19,360 --> 00:02:24,119
Speaker 1: COVID hair. It is really long, real, it's just out

43
00:02:24,120 --> 00:02:27,040
Speaker 1: of control. You know that point where when you grow

44
00:02:27,760 --> 00:02:30,640
Speaker 1: your finger nails out too far and they just turn

45
00:02:30,680 --> 00:02:32,200
Speaker 1: that corner. Well, you wouldn't know it because you bite

46
00:02:32,200 --> 00:02:36,440
Speaker 1: your fingernails, right. I quit biting my fingernails a while ago. Okay,

47
00:02:36,440 --> 00:02:38,920
Speaker 1: so so maybe you've experienced this. There's a point, and

48
00:02:38,960 --> 00:02:42,280
Speaker 1: it can It can happen within an hour where they're

49
00:02:42,360 --> 00:02:44,640
Speaker 1: just too close to being too long, and then all

50
00:02:44,639 --> 00:02:47,200
Speaker 1: of a sudden they turn this corner and you can't

51
00:02:47,240 --> 00:02:51,560
Speaker 1: go like another minute with them being unclipped. They just

52
00:02:51,600 --> 00:02:53,800
Speaker 1: feel so gross all of a sudden. That's how my

53
00:02:53,880 --> 00:02:56,240
Speaker 1: hair feels right now. I think the corner of your

54
00:02:56,240 --> 00:03:00,480
Speaker 1: fingernails turn is called the tip of your finger start

55
00:03:00,600 --> 00:03:07,120
Speaker 1: wrapping around. Yeah, man, so, um, I guess we're talking

56
00:03:07,120 --> 00:03:10,600
Speaker 1: wastewater treatment then obviously with all this fingernail talk. Yeah,

57
00:03:10,600 --> 00:03:13,480
Speaker 1: and I gotta say, um, who did this one? Did

58
00:03:13,600 --> 00:03:16,080
Speaker 1: Ed put this together for us? Ed did this with

59
00:03:16,120 --> 00:03:19,880
Speaker 1: a high fever from what I understand, right, non non

60
00:03:19,960 --> 00:03:23,000
Speaker 1: COVID related, we should point out, Yeah, he was just sick.

61
00:03:23,240 --> 00:03:25,920
Speaker 1: He came through. He's doing Okay, he's on the mend

62
00:03:26,560 --> 00:03:28,560
Speaker 1: um but yeah, he he turned this in. He's like,

63
00:03:28,639 --> 00:03:30,240
Speaker 1: I I had a fever when I wrote this, So

64
00:03:30,320 --> 00:03:32,520
Speaker 1: it might not make that much sense, but it did.

65
00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:34,880
Speaker 1: I think it did, But I do we should say

66
00:03:34,920 --> 00:03:37,560
Speaker 1: if you work in wastewater treatment. What I did find

67
00:03:37,560 --> 00:03:42,280
Speaker 1: out doing supplementary research was that there are clearly a

68
00:03:42,280 --> 00:03:46,200
Speaker 1: lot of like there are almost fifteen thousand treatment plants

69
00:03:46,200 --> 00:03:47,920
Speaker 1: in the United States, and they're clearly a bunch of

70
00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:50,360
Speaker 1: different ways to do it. Because I saw a bunch

71
00:03:50,400 --> 00:03:53,720
Speaker 1: of other different stuff. So let's just say what we're

72
00:03:53,720 --> 00:03:57,400
Speaker 1: going to talk about is one way that it can go. Yeah,

73
00:03:57,440 --> 00:03:59,520
Speaker 1: and we'll probably touch on some of the other ones

74
00:03:59,600 --> 00:04:01,880
Speaker 1: that you know people use, but there's just no way

75
00:04:01,920 --> 00:04:04,080
Speaker 1: we could cover everything. And the other thing that I

76
00:04:04,120 --> 00:04:09,280
Speaker 1: saw too, is there's a UM there's a real sentiment

77
00:04:09,360 --> 00:04:13,320
Speaker 1: that the United States, in particulars infrastructure for treating wastewater

78
00:04:14,080 --> 00:04:17,880
Speaker 1: UM is aging really rapidly, like we need to do

79
00:04:17,960 --> 00:04:21,720
Speaker 1: something about it soon. I saw some some some watched

80
00:04:21,760 --> 00:04:24,599
Speaker 1: all groups that we need to spend about two billion

81
00:04:24,640 --> 00:04:27,960
Speaker 1: dollars to upgrade our wastewater treatment around the country. Somebody

82
00:04:27,960 --> 00:04:31,400
Speaker 1: else has six billion, but everybody's saying, wait, wait, wait, okay,

83
00:04:31,800 --> 00:04:36,400
Speaker 1: that's great because we're using really antiquated methods that work.

84
00:04:36,520 --> 00:04:39,040
Speaker 1: They work pretty well, but they're having a lot of

85
00:04:39,080 --> 00:04:44,080
Speaker 1: trouble keeping up with um. The jones with the Jones

86
00:04:44,120 --> 00:04:47,200
Speaker 1: is yes, because the jones is now. Because we live

87
00:04:47,240 --> 00:04:51,640
Speaker 1: amongst like plastic everywhere they poop and pee plastic, they

88
00:04:51,640 --> 00:04:56,200
Speaker 1: throw stuff in antibiotics into their toilets. There's like a

89
00:04:56,279 --> 00:05:00,760
Speaker 1: different world than the wastewater treatment plants where built to

90
00:05:00,760 --> 00:05:03,360
Speaker 1: to handle like in the in the early and mid

91
00:05:03,360 --> 00:05:06,920
Speaker 1: twentieth century. This is like a real opportunity to update

92
00:05:07,080 --> 00:05:09,919
Speaker 1: our infrastructure as we rebuild it. So hopefully we'll be

93
00:05:09,960 --> 00:05:14,039
Speaker 1: doing that hopefully. And you know what, two billion doesn't

94
00:05:14,080 --> 00:05:15,719
Speaker 1: sound like a lot of money. I thought I was

95
00:05:15,720 --> 00:05:18,200
Speaker 1: going to hear a number like one trillion. That's what

96
00:05:18,360 --> 00:05:20,600
Speaker 1: I would have thought too. I was actually kind of surprised.

97
00:05:20,640 --> 00:05:22,839
Speaker 1: I went back and looked, and now they were talking

98
00:05:22,880 --> 00:05:26,200
Speaker 1: about the wastewater treatment. So I don't know if it's

99
00:05:27,160 --> 00:05:29,920
Speaker 1: I know that some of the technologies are very expensive,

100
00:05:30,400 --> 00:05:33,159
Speaker 1: and maybe they're saying to rebuild as is, it would

101
00:05:33,200 --> 00:05:35,640
Speaker 1: be two hundred and forty two six hundred billion, but

102
00:05:35,760 --> 00:05:39,000
Speaker 1: maybe to to implement some of them more high tech

103
00:05:39,080 --> 00:05:41,919
Speaker 1: stuff that that has come along in the last few years,

104
00:05:42,080 --> 00:05:44,760
Speaker 1: maybe that would be a little more high dollar. All right,

105
00:05:44,800 --> 00:05:48,400
Speaker 1: well let's talk about low dollar, okay, by way of history,

106
00:05:48,640 --> 00:05:53,240
Speaker 1: because at the beginning of wastewater treatment, well you can't

107
00:05:53,279 --> 00:05:55,520
Speaker 1: even call it wastewater treatment, it was just calling It

108
00:05:55,600 --> 00:05:57,680
Speaker 1: was basically like how we dealt with wastewater. We weren't

109
00:05:57,680 --> 00:06:01,800
Speaker 1: treating it at all. The very most rudimentary thing that

110
00:06:01,839 --> 00:06:07,120
Speaker 1: you still can see in places our outhouses and latrines,

111
00:06:07,360 --> 00:06:11,720
Speaker 1: which trine is just an outhouse or an outhouse is

112
00:06:11,760 --> 00:06:13,640
Speaker 1: just a little trine with a little a little bit

113
00:06:13,640 --> 00:06:16,760
Speaker 1: of privacy involved. Yeah, and you know what, I was

114
00:06:16,800 --> 00:06:19,880
Speaker 1: looking up out houses. They're still around. There's like composting

115
00:06:19,920 --> 00:06:22,920
Speaker 1: toilets and urine diverters and all sorts of like hippie

116
00:06:22,920 --> 00:06:25,520
Speaker 1: stuff you can get into if you want. But one

117
00:06:25,520 --> 00:06:28,320
Speaker 1: thing I kept seeing was, you know, like there's always

118
00:06:28,320 --> 00:06:31,880
Speaker 1: like a crescent moon cut out on the outhouse. Uh, yeah,

119
00:06:31,920 --> 00:06:35,039
Speaker 1: I've seen those. It's like almost synonymous with an outous.

120
00:06:35,160 --> 00:06:38,000
Speaker 1: It looks weird without one to me. So I looked

121
00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:40,920
Speaker 1: it up and it turns out that back in colonial times,

122
00:06:41,040 --> 00:06:46,720
Speaker 1: when um, there was a preliterate population. The crescent moon

123
00:06:47,000 --> 00:06:50,080
Speaker 1: indicated that the outhouse was for women, and a star

124
00:06:50,160 --> 00:06:55,360
Speaker 1: cutout indicated it was for men. The mystery from never

125
00:06:55,400 --> 00:06:58,960
Speaker 1: had any any idea. Yeah, I learned that visiting Mount Vernon.

126
00:07:00,400 --> 00:07:02,480
Speaker 1: That would be a good place to learn that for sure.

127
00:07:02,760 --> 00:07:05,320
Speaker 1: And George Washington's just had a big cutout of a

128
00:07:05,360 --> 00:07:10,160
Speaker 1: marijuana leaf. He is only for him. Yeah, he'd come

129
00:07:10,200 --> 00:07:12,960
Speaker 1: home from working in the fields and Martha would have

130
00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:15,960
Speaker 1: a big bowl, big fat bowl waiting for him at

131
00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:19,360
Speaker 1: the end of the day. Very nice. Uh So if

132
00:07:19,360 --> 00:07:22,080
Speaker 1: you're talking about twentieth century, you would think like, yeah,

133
00:07:22,120 --> 00:07:24,320
Speaker 1: but surely when we got to the twentieth century they

134
00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:29,840
Speaker 1: were really handling the sewage properly, not so at all. Um,

135
00:07:29,880 --> 00:07:32,320
Speaker 1: just you know, it was well into the twentieth century

136
00:07:32,360 --> 00:07:36,040
Speaker 1: when we still had suburbs with people living them in

137
00:07:36,080 --> 00:07:40,480
Speaker 1: them with no sewer connections and outhouses and this was

138
00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:42,400
Speaker 1: this is kind of hard to believe, but I guess

139
00:07:42,400 --> 00:07:46,559
Speaker 1: in more rural areas. But that even says suburbs. Yeah,

140
00:07:46,600 --> 00:07:48,760
Speaker 1: he made it sound like basically if you went into

141
00:07:48,840 --> 00:07:53,160
Speaker 1: like um, I don't know, uh, Dunwoodie or something like that,

142
00:07:53,200 --> 00:07:55,400
Speaker 1: which is a suburb of Atlanta. Okay, you would have

143
00:07:55,400 --> 00:07:58,000
Speaker 1: found out houses in the fifties, which maybe that's true.

144
00:07:58,040 --> 00:07:59,440
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, if you think about it,

145
00:07:59,480 --> 00:08:01,440
Speaker 1: a septic tank is really just kind of a fancy

146
00:08:01,520 --> 00:08:06,320
Speaker 1: ladrine pit. Yeah. But it's interesting too because in uh

147
00:08:06,520 --> 00:08:10,440
Speaker 1: like six b C. There were places that, you know,

148
00:08:10,480 --> 00:08:12,360
Speaker 1: it's funny because it seems like there's a lot of

149
00:08:13,160 --> 00:08:16,800
Speaker 1: advanced thinking in ancient times that goes by the wayside

150
00:08:16,840 --> 00:08:18,920
Speaker 1: for just thousands of years and then it comes back.

151
00:08:19,800 --> 00:08:22,280
Speaker 1: But in what is now modern Syria, they actually had

152
00:08:22,360 --> 00:08:26,160
Speaker 1: drainage pipes and stuff that fed wastewater from the outhouses,

153
00:08:27,000 --> 00:08:29,520
Speaker 1: uh basically to the streets and rivers. So it's not

154
00:08:29,560 --> 00:08:31,520
Speaker 1: like it was great, but it at least got it

155
00:08:31,520 --> 00:08:33,640
Speaker 1: out of there. They didn't have a lot of follow

156
00:08:33,720 --> 00:08:36,120
Speaker 1: through on their ideas. Great first idea, and then they

157
00:08:36,120 --> 00:08:39,160
Speaker 1: were like, I just forget it after that pretty much.

158
00:08:39,160 --> 00:08:42,040
Speaker 1: But hey, have you ever heard why things were like

159
00:08:42,320 --> 00:08:45,480
Speaker 1: possibly more advanced or very advanced early on and then

160
00:08:45,520 --> 00:08:48,120
Speaker 1: they went dark for a little while. I feel like

161
00:08:48,120 --> 00:08:50,960
Speaker 1: we talked about this before. It must have been the

162
00:08:51,040 --> 00:08:53,920
Speaker 1: Enlightenment episode, because it's them. It was the Dark Ages

163
00:08:53,960 --> 00:08:56,840
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages when the Church took over and basically

164
00:08:56,840 --> 00:09:01,160
Speaker 1: said science can can burn hell. Amazing, that works. Yeah,

165
00:09:01,200 --> 00:09:04,240
Speaker 1: it's crazy. And then the Enlightenment came along and said, no,

166
00:09:04,320 --> 00:09:07,040
Speaker 1: science is back everybody, and we started to have like

167
00:09:07,520 --> 00:09:11,640
Speaker 1: sewage treatment again, which I mean not coincidentally, that's around

168
00:09:11,640 --> 00:09:15,120
Speaker 1: the time we started taking sewage treatment seriously. And it

169
00:09:15,160 --> 00:09:17,240
Speaker 1: wasn't just that we like got a lot smarter all

170
00:09:17,240 --> 00:09:20,400
Speaker 1: of a sudden from the Enlightenment, which definitely was partially

171
00:09:20,440 --> 00:09:23,600
Speaker 1: the case, but there were way more people, and so

172
00:09:23,720 --> 00:09:26,600
Speaker 1: things like digging a hole in the ground, pooping and

173
00:09:26,640 --> 00:09:29,360
Speaker 1: peeing into it and then once it got full, you know,

174
00:09:29,720 --> 00:09:34,120
Speaker 1: burying it and digging another hole. UM methods like that

175
00:09:34,280 --> 00:09:37,480
Speaker 1: just became unsustainable. Or putting all of your sewage out

176
00:09:37,520 --> 00:09:40,319
Speaker 1: into the street, it became unsustainable just because there were

177
00:09:40,400 --> 00:09:43,319
Speaker 1: so many people. Yeah, and there was poop and p

178
00:09:43,720 --> 00:09:46,920
Speaker 1: literally everywhere in the streets and the rivers and the lakes.

179
00:09:47,160 --> 00:09:51,720
Speaker 1: And the first um sort of pushed towards treating the

180
00:09:51,800 --> 00:09:55,000
Speaker 1: sewage was literally just because the smell. Eventually they were like,

181
00:09:55,800 --> 00:09:58,839
Speaker 1: this is terrible to live amongst. Maybe we could do something,

182
00:09:58,920 --> 00:10:01,760
Speaker 1: Maybe we could throw some time or some charcoal or

183
00:10:01,800 --> 00:10:04,400
Speaker 1: some sawdust on this stuff, and at least and it

184
00:10:04,440 --> 00:10:08,800
Speaker 1: won't be safe, but we won't be like walking around gagging. Right,

185
00:10:09,280 --> 00:10:11,439
Speaker 1: They're like, at least there are some sawdust on there.

186
00:10:11,520 --> 00:10:17,079
Speaker 1: Some do something for God's sake. Sure, so they did

187
00:10:17,160 --> 00:10:20,840
Speaker 1: do that, right, Um, But that's still it still wasn't enough.

188
00:10:20,880 --> 00:10:23,440
Speaker 1: I mean, people were still just they they I think

189
00:10:23,480 --> 00:10:27,200
Speaker 1: in our Great Stink episode, Joseph basil Get was um

190
00:10:27,600 --> 00:10:30,800
Speaker 1: just revered as a saint basically for saving people by

191
00:10:30,920 --> 00:10:35,680
Speaker 1: you know, diverting um sewage into sewers away from people's

192
00:10:35,720 --> 00:10:38,640
Speaker 1: drinking water and stuff. But even still, I think he

193
00:10:38,720 --> 00:10:41,160
Speaker 1: was also responsible for helping design some of the earliest

194
00:10:41,240 --> 00:10:45,120
Speaker 1: wastewater treatment plants. But um still around the time and

195
00:10:45,320 --> 00:10:49,760
Speaker 1: into the twentieth century, like there it was basically like

196
00:10:49,840 --> 00:10:51,880
Speaker 1: here's a sewer, and then we're just gonna make the

197
00:10:51,880 --> 00:10:55,280
Speaker 1: sewer come out downstream of our of our drinking water supply,

198
00:10:55,679 --> 00:11:01,640
Speaker 1: and then problem solved. Sorry for Shelbyville, but exactly chew

199
00:11:01,679 --> 00:11:05,720
Speaker 1: on it, Shelby Bill chew on our fecal matter. But

200
00:11:05,720 --> 00:11:07,880
Speaker 1: but that was kind of exactly what happened if you

201
00:11:07,920 --> 00:11:10,320
Speaker 1: were down river, downstream or you know, on the other

202
00:11:10,400 --> 00:11:12,920
Speaker 1: side of the lake from this area. You know, you

203
00:11:13,040 --> 00:11:15,520
Speaker 1: got their poop in your backyard and you didn't want that.

204
00:11:15,640 --> 00:11:19,480
Speaker 1: So eventually people started realizing that there are things that

205
00:11:19,520 --> 00:11:24,760
Speaker 1: you can do to make water better and then put

206
00:11:24,800 --> 00:11:27,240
Speaker 1: it into rivers and lakes and streams and even the

207
00:11:27,280 --> 00:11:30,800
Speaker 1: ocean and seas. And that is basically where we're at

208
00:11:30,880 --> 00:11:35,720
Speaker 1: right now with wastewater treatment, which is we poop and

209
00:11:35,760 --> 00:11:38,200
Speaker 1: pee and we flushed stuff into the sewer, and then

210
00:11:38,200 --> 00:11:41,280
Speaker 1: the stuff goes into a wastewater treatment plant. We do

211
00:11:41,400 --> 00:11:44,280
Speaker 1: some stuff to it, and then we put out slightly

212
00:11:44,360 --> 00:11:48,160
Speaker 1: better than sewage water into the rivers and lakes and

213
00:11:48,240 --> 00:11:51,960
Speaker 1: streams and and hope for the best. Yeah, that's right. Um.

214
00:11:52,040 --> 00:11:53,840
Speaker 1: Some of the early things they also did was like

215
00:11:53,880 --> 00:11:58,800
Speaker 1: fled afield with wastewater. Uh. This allowed sedimentation, which is

216
00:11:59,040 --> 00:12:02,600
Speaker 1: the you know, the the feces basically settling, and then

217
00:12:02,920 --> 00:12:05,360
Speaker 1: actually the plants can help out. The plants take up

218
00:12:05,400 --> 00:12:08,719
Speaker 1: all that gross stuff as water that they used to

219
00:12:08,800 --> 00:12:11,560
Speaker 1: grow and it kind of traps it in there, which

220
00:12:11,600 --> 00:12:14,439
Speaker 1: is nice, But then you sell those plants to Shelbyville.

221
00:12:14,760 --> 00:12:18,120
Speaker 1: That's right, But it still didn't change, It didn't make

222
00:12:18,120 --> 00:12:21,560
Speaker 1: anything less harmful. Uh. As far as bacteria goes. So

223
00:12:21,640 --> 00:12:26,040
Speaker 1: that's why typhoid and cholera and everything was a huge problem.

224
00:12:26,200 --> 00:12:31,680
Speaker 1: And that's why wastewater maybe the biggest advancement in life

225
00:12:31,679 --> 00:12:35,280
Speaker 1: saving device like that in penicillin our neck, neck and neck.

226
00:12:35,320 --> 00:12:39,079
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, really, I mean, like just not being

227
00:12:39,120 --> 00:12:42,720
Speaker 1: around water that contains all sorts of harmful bacteria that

228
00:12:42,760 --> 00:12:45,840
Speaker 1: people pooped out. That's definitely going to improve your lifespan

229
00:12:45,960 --> 00:12:49,800
Speaker 1: for sure. And that that whole thing about putting sewage

230
00:12:50,000 --> 00:12:52,800
Speaker 1: onto a field and letting the plants deal with it

231
00:12:53,040 --> 00:12:56,280
Speaker 1: that's actually still around. That's like a that's a a

232
00:12:56,360 --> 00:12:59,760
Speaker 1: sensible way to treat sewage because not only do the

233
00:12:59,760 --> 00:13:02,319
Speaker 1: plan ants you know, take care of it, but as

234
00:13:02,320 --> 00:13:05,320
Speaker 1: it trickles down through the soil to the groundwater, there's

235
00:13:05,320 --> 00:13:07,480
Speaker 1: all sorts of microbes and minerals and all sorts of

236
00:13:07,520 --> 00:13:10,640
Speaker 1: ions that pick up that harmful stuff and that actually

237
00:13:10,679 --> 00:13:14,040
Speaker 1: purifies the water. The problem is is once you get

238
00:13:14,080 --> 00:13:17,480
Speaker 1: too many people, which can happen really quickly, that that

239
00:13:17,800 --> 00:13:21,000
Speaker 1: soil and those plants get overwhelmed and a lot of

240
00:13:21,000 --> 00:13:23,840
Speaker 1: bad stuff gets through and then you're polluting the groundwater.

241
00:13:24,240 --> 00:13:26,600
Speaker 1: So as more and more people came along, we realized

242
00:13:26,640 --> 00:13:28,480
Speaker 1: we had to come up with technology. We couldn't just

243
00:13:28,520 --> 00:13:33,160
Speaker 1: rely on soil anymore. Yeah. Um, Massachusetts was a little

244
00:13:33,200 --> 00:13:37,560
Speaker 1: forward thinking in a Woosta, mass in eighty nine, they

245
00:13:37,600 --> 00:13:41,880
Speaker 1: actually treated sewage with chemicals. Uh. And this is one

246
00:13:41,920 --> 00:13:45,160
Speaker 1: of the first chemical treatments for sewage in America, I think.

247
00:13:46,080 --> 00:13:49,120
Speaker 1: And that would cause these solids to clump together and

248
00:13:49,160 --> 00:13:52,720
Speaker 1: then settle out like obviously the fecal matter. Uh. And

249
00:13:52,760 --> 00:13:56,480
Speaker 1: that was good because bacteria is more uh more apt

250
00:13:56,520 --> 00:13:58,960
Speaker 1: to cling to the poop than it will to stay

251
00:13:58,960 --> 00:14:01,000
Speaker 1: in the water. So that helped for a little while,

252
00:14:01,559 --> 00:14:04,600
Speaker 1: and then for a long time after that they would

253
00:14:04,679 --> 00:14:08,880
Speaker 1: just sort of dilute the water with uh, with clean

254
00:14:08,920 --> 00:14:11,840
Speaker 1: water and say, well, it's this is as good as

255
00:14:11,880 --> 00:14:14,880
Speaker 1: we can do basically, yeah, which I mean again, that's

256
00:14:14,960 --> 00:14:17,280
Speaker 1: kind of what we're doing now. Whi's just the stuff

257
00:14:17,280 --> 00:14:21,560
Speaker 1: we're putting out now is way better, um, way less harmful,

258
00:14:21,600 --> 00:14:23,440
Speaker 1: and has way more stuff taken out than it did

259
00:14:23,480 --> 00:14:27,160
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century. But that's ultimately, that's what I'm

260
00:14:27,160 --> 00:14:31,520
Speaker 1: saying that we're still working mostly on those premises. One

261
00:14:31,720 --> 00:14:36,440
Speaker 1: is that you, um, you you allow sedimentation to happen,

262
00:14:36,920 --> 00:14:39,320
Speaker 1: which is like putting sewage over a field and letting

263
00:14:39,320 --> 00:14:43,640
Speaker 1: the sediment settle, and then um, you use chemical or

264
00:14:43,680 --> 00:14:47,280
Speaker 1: biological treatments to filter out stuff that is left over

265
00:14:47,360 --> 00:14:50,360
Speaker 1: even after sedimentation. And that's again that's that's where we're

266
00:14:50,360 --> 00:14:53,080
Speaker 1: at today. It's just the techniques were using are much

267
00:14:53,080 --> 00:14:55,760
Speaker 1: more advanced. Yeah. And I don't think we even said

268
00:14:55,760 --> 00:14:58,000
Speaker 1: what wastewater is because I think a lot of people

269
00:14:58,040 --> 00:15:01,080
Speaker 1: might think that wastewater is just something that goes down

270
00:15:01,160 --> 00:15:04,720
Speaker 1: your toilet. Um. But wastewater is any kind of water

271
00:15:05,400 --> 00:15:09,480
Speaker 1: affected by human use at all period. So there's uh,

272
00:15:09,520 --> 00:15:14,080
Speaker 1: there's storm runoff. You know, rainwater is is wastewater. Um.

273
00:15:14,160 --> 00:15:16,440
Speaker 1: And you might think like rainwater is beautiful, it falls

274
00:15:16,480 --> 00:15:19,920
Speaker 1: from the sky and it's so clean. But this stuff

275
00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:22,960
Speaker 1: is running through cities. It's running, uh and especially in

276
00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:26,400
Speaker 1: cities because there's not enough dirt and grass to soak

277
00:15:26,440 --> 00:15:30,000
Speaker 1: it all up. So it's it's taking everything on every

278
00:15:30,280 --> 00:15:34,760
Speaker 1: urban city street in America and collecting that and taking

279
00:15:34,800 --> 00:15:41,760
Speaker 1: it with it. So fertilizer, pesticides, any kind of agricultural grossness,

280
00:15:42,480 --> 00:15:45,200
Speaker 1: road kill, I mean, just think about every disgusting thing

281
00:15:45,200 --> 00:15:48,240
Speaker 1: on the ground. And that's what stormwater is. And that's

282
00:15:48,240 --> 00:15:51,800
Speaker 1: why stormwater is treated just like it is, which is wastewater,

283
00:15:52,520 --> 00:15:58,200
Speaker 1: whole possums, tons of possums. Guns Apparently what I saw

284
00:15:58,720 --> 00:16:02,920
Speaker 1: one wastewater treatment explainer video and apparently a lot of

285
00:16:02,960 --> 00:16:06,200
Speaker 1: guns end up getting filtered out in that first big filter.

286
00:16:06,680 --> 00:16:09,400
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, because I think people like, I don't

287
00:16:09,400 --> 00:16:11,520
Speaker 1: know if they're just murder weapons that people throw down

288
00:16:11,520 --> 00:16:13,960
Speaker 1: a sewer drain. I mean I would guess so, or

289
00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:18,000
Speaker 1: at least crime weapons. You know, it's kind of scared. Yeah,

290
00:16:18,240 --> 00:16:21,680
Speaker 1: you'd like to think like that happened one time somewhere,

291
00:16:21,800 --> 00:16:24,800
Speaker 1: not like that's a regular occurrence. That's nuts. Well, I mean,

292
00:16:24,840 --> 00:16:26,560
Speaker 1: I say a lot of guns. I don't know how

293
00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:29,920
Speaker 1: many guns, but it was enough for them to mention

294
00:16:30,120 --> 00:16:35,840
Speaker 1: that guns show up quite often, right. Um, the one

295
00:16:35,880 --> 00:16:38,440
Speaker 1: you were talking about, which is like all that that

296
00:16:38,600 --> 00:16:40,920
Speaker 1: wastewater that goes down toilet's the poop and the b

297
00:16:41,680 --> 00:16:45,080
Speaker 1: water that's actually called black water. I love that term. Man,

298
00:16:45,840 --> 00:16:48,560
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make some black water. Yeah, that sounds like

299
00:16:48,760 --> 00:16:51,680
Speaker 1: a like a hardcore cocktail that would involve Yeager Moister

300
00:16:52,200 --> 00:16:55,040
Speaker 1: and the Doodie Brothers. Let's work it out here, So

301
00:16:55,160 --> 00:16:59,960
Speaker 1: Yeager Meister okay, um, a little bit of simple surah,

302
00:17:01,040 --> 00:17:06,639
Speaker 1: very simple syrup, orange juice, fresh squeeze orange juice. How

303
00:17:06,680 --> 00:17:08,359
Speaker 1: would that be with a beta? Be awful with the

304
00:17:08,400 --> 00:17:10,760
Speaker 1: ager moister, of course, everything's gonna be off with you,

305
00:17:10,840 --> 00:17:15,959
Speaker 1: ager MOISTERA um and then a little um, freshly muddled basil,

306
00:17:16,840 --> 00:17:20,760
Speaker 1: little star and ease. Perhaps that's the black water cocktail.

307
00:17:21,240 --> 00:17:25,840
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's terrible. Gray water is not as

308
00:17:25,960 --> 00:17:29,280
Speaker 1: gross as that by any stretch. This is all the water.

309
00:17:29,400 --> 00:17:32,280
Speaker 1: And we've talked about gray water in our eco friendly

310
00:17:32,320 --> 00:17:35,200
Speaker 1: episodes because a lot of households will reuse their gray water,

311
00:17:35,280 --> 00:17:39,840
Speaker 1: the water that goes down your sink or your shower. Um,

312
00:17:39,880 --> 00:17:43,200
Speaker 1: a lot of individual households try to recycle their own

313
00:17:43,320 --> 00:17:46,160
Speaker 1: gray water. If you're uh, you know, one of those

314
00:17:46,200 --> 00:17:49,159
Speaker 1: four thinking hippie dippie types. Sure, if you've got a

315
00:17:49,160 --> 00:17:52,639
Speaker 1: composting toilet out house in your backyard. Yeah, but generally

316
00:17:53,119 --> 00:17:56,520
Speaker 1: there aren't like big cities with huge gray water recycling

317
00:17:56,560 --> 00:18:00,520
Speaker 1: systems yet to predict that in the next many years

318
00:18:00,560 --> 00:18:03,679
Speaker 1: we will see those rise pretty pretty commonly. Yeah. I

319
00:18:03,720 --> 00:18:06,760
Speaker 1: hope so I do too. I mean, it's definitely about time,

320
00:18:06,840 --> 00:18:10,920
Speaker 1: like we waste water, like like it's nothing. Yeah, it's

321
00:18:10,960 --> 00:18:13,720
Speaker 1: crazy how cheap our water is, especially in the States.

322
00:18:13,760 --> 00:18:17,280
Speaker 1: You know. UM, there's also a couple of other things

323
00:18:17,800 --> 00:18:21,280
Speaker 1: that if you're a waste I think they actually they

324
00:18:21,320 --> 00:18:23,639
Speaker 1: don't call them waste water any longer. They call it

325
00:18:23,760 --> 00:18:27,760
Speaker 1: UM water resource reclamation plants, which I really kind of

326
00:18:27,880 --> 00:18:29,800
Speaker 1: drives home what we're talking about a little more like

327
00:18:29,840 --> 00:18:31,879
Speaker 1: this is this is something you don't want to just

328
00:18:33,320 --> 00:18:35,520
Speaker 1: pe away, you know what I'm saying, Like, this is

329
00:18:35,560 --> 00:18:39,240
Speaker 1: important stuff UM, And so they're they're starting to use

330
00:18:39,359 --> 00:18:42,240
Speaker 1: like that kind of nomenclature to to indicate how important

331
00:18:42,280 --> 00:18:44,040
Speaker 1: it is. But if you run one of these plants

332
00:18:44,040 --> 00:18:46,080
Speaker 1: where you work at them, UM, a couple of other

333
00:18:46,119 --> 00:18:49,119
Speaker 1: things you're gonna be on the lookout for. UM is

334
00:18:49,160 --> 00:18:53,680
Speaker 1: the um amount of pollutants that you're you have in

335
00:18:53,760 --> 00:18:56,800
Speaker 1: your your water at any given time, the amount that

336
00:18:56,840 --> 00:19:00,200
Speaker 1: comes through. And then in addition to storm runoff, black water,

337
00:19:00,240 --> 00:19:03,720
Speaker 1: and gray water, you're also on the lookout for industrial affluent.

338
00:19:04,840 --> 00:19:08,240
Speaker 1: And we should probably say real quick, um iffluent is

339
00:19:08,280 --> 00:19:12,359
Speaker 1: what most people call wastewater all forms going into the

340
00:19:12,359 --> 00:19:18,439
Speaker 1: treatment plant. Yes, not affluent, no, no, UM effluent UH

341
00:19:18,720 --> 00:19:21,760
Speaker 1: is is all wastewater if you're not in the know.

342
00:19:22,080 --> 00:19:25,360
Speaker 1: If you are in the know, Effluent is what a

343
00:19:25,400 --> 00:19:29,240
Speaker 1: water reclamation treatment plant puts out. The treated water is effluent.

344
00:19:29,560 --> 00:19:33,360
Speaker 1: The all the untreated stuff that comes in is influent.

345
00:19:33,600 --> 00:19:36,680
Speaker 1: That's right. But I think if we say effluent, we're

346
00:19:36,720 --> 00:19:39,479
Speaker 1: probably just gonna be talking about it in general throughout

347
00:19:39,560 --> 00:19:44,359
Speaker 1: this episode. Yeah, and you know you mentioned industrial processes. Um,

348
00:19:44,520 --> 00:19:47,000
Speaker 1: we should probably point out to that if you have

349
00:19:47,040 --> 00:19:51,920
Speaker 1: an industrial plant manufacturing something, you probably have your own

350
00:19:52,720 --> 00:19:56,600
Speaker 1: uh wastewater treatment system on site. You don't just dump

351
00:19:56,640 --> 00:19:58,840
Speaker 1: all that stuff and say here, county or city deal

352
00:19:58,880 --> 00:20:02,399
Speaker 1: with it. You have to clean that stuff first. Just

353
00:20:02,520 --> 00:20:05,840
Speaker 1: in that really gross still gross water to the city.

354
00:20:06,400 --> 00:20:10,199
Speaker 1: Probably depends on your mayor if he's spineless or she's spineless.

355
00:20:10,440 --> 00:20:16,080
Speaker 1: That's true, Mayor Quimby, he wouldn't. He wouldn't let it

356
00:20:16,119 --> 00:20:18,240
Speaker 1: happen because he was spineless. He'd let it happen because

357
00:20:18,240 --> 00:20:21,160
Speaker 1: he was getting kickbacks for it. Oh man, my favorite.

358
00:20:21,160 --> 00:20:22,600
Speaker 1: I don't know even know if I can say this

359
00:20:22,680 --> 00:20:27,320
Speaker 1: on the air. Okay, should I? Do? You know the line?

360
00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:29,600
Speaker 1: My favorite? No? No, I wait to hear it. We'll

361
00:20:29,720 --> 00:20:31,880
Speaker 1: edit it out if you can't. All right, I can't

362
00:20:31,880 --> 00:20:34,480
Speaker 1: remember which episode, but it was when everyone was freaking

363
00:20:34,480 --> 00:20:36,920
Speaker 1: out about something and Quinby came up to the podium

364
00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:40,040
Speaker 1: and said, calm down, everyone, I know, well, all we're

365
00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:43,639
Speaker 1: all frightened and hawny. Yeah, that's right. I think that

366
00:20:43,840 --> 00:20:47,880
Speaker 1: was the comment episode where the comment was headed towards Springfield.

367
00:20:48,119 --> 00:20:52,400
Speaker 1: We're all frightened and horny, so funny. And then he

368
00:20:52,480 --> 00:20:57,040
Speaker 1: introduces Professor Frank, and Professor Frank goes a good evening everyone,

369
00:20:57,040 --> 00:21:01,920
Speaker 1: and somebody stands up. He goes quit stalling what he goes, Okay, alright,

370
00:21:02,000 --> 00:21:07,440
Speaker 1: sit down. Oh man, I missed that show. I do too. Um,

371
00:21:07,480 --> 00:21:10,600
Speaker 1: you want to take a break, Yeah, let's take a

372
00:21:10,640 --> 00:21:35,719
Speaker 1: break and we'll talk about how this stuff is treated. Okay.

373
00:21:35,720 --> 00:21:40,080
Speaker 1: So we've basically we've talked a lot about wastewater up

374
00:21:40,080 --> 00:21:42,560
Speaker 1: to this point, Chuck, and I feel like we should

375
00:21:42,560 --> 00:21:45,720
Speaker 1: talk about it some more. Yeah, And uh, let me

376
00:21:45,760 --> 00:21:47,720
Speaker 1: point something out too real quick, because Ed said in

377
00:21:47,800 --> 00:21:52,480
Speaker 1: here that, um, wastewater treatment plants is not water that

378
00:21:52,520 --> 00:21:56,480
Speaker 1: you're going to end up drinking. That is not fully true. Um,

379
00:21:56,520 --> 00:22:01,280
Speaker 1: in in water challenged places in the world. Uh, they

380
00:22:01,280 --> 00:22:03,680
Speaker 1: don't like to call it this, but there are treatment

381
00:22:03,760 --> 00:22:08,320
Speaker 1: facilities where they can go toilet to tap um places

382
00:22:08,560 --> 00:22:14,959
Speaker 1: like Australia, Singapore, Namibia and then New Mexico, Virginia and California. Uh,

383
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:19,680
Speaker 1: they convert this stuff back into potable water. And it's

384
00:22:20,160 --> 00:22:24,119
Speaker 1: pretty great actually because they've said, uh, it's shown that

385
00:22:24,200 --> 00:22:28,760
Speaker 1: it actually has fewer containments contaminants than existing just like

386
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:31,240
Speaker 1: what you and I are drinking in Atlanta. Let's say,

387
00:22:31,320 --> 00:22:33,480
Speaker 1: yeah for sure, because they put it through such a

388
00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:37,320
Speaker 1: rigorous process that from what I saw, Singapore actually has

389
00:22:37,359 --> 00:22:41,480
Speaker 1: to remix it with rain water so that it'll get

390
00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:44,800
Speaker 1: some of like the local minerals in in tar War

391
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:48,520
Speaker 1: basically because they strip it. They strip everything out. It's

392
00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:51,480
Speaker 1: just like water molecules and that's it from what they

393
00:22:51,480 --> 00:22:53,680
Speaker 1: do with it. And the one in Singapore I was

394
00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:55,600
Speaker 1: reading about. Did you read about that one? They seem

395
00:22:55,640 --> 00:22:58,040
Speaker 1: to be like the leaders of the pack with this stuff.

396
00:22:58,359 --> 00:23:02,359
Speaker 1: I think Singapore is especially challenge with water supplies. Yeah.

397
00:23:02,600 --> 00:23:05,440
Speaker 1: So they actually, um, they came up with something called

398
00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:09,800
Speaker 1: new water any W water and any W is capitalized.

399
00:23:09,800 --> 00:23:12,359
Speaker 1: It is just a great great little like word and

400
00:23:12,359 --> 00:23:16,120
Speaker 1: and spelling and everything. Um. But they also in addition

401
00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:19,280
Speaker 1: to just coming up with like a bang up water

402
00:23:19,440 --> 00:23:23,359
Speaker 1: filtration system or water reclamation system. They also had a

403
00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:28,560
Speaker 1: bang up PR campaign and got everybody behind it. You

404
00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:31,320
Speaker 1: totally do. There was a town I can't remember in

405
00:23:31,480 --> 00:23:34,760
Speaker 1: um I can't remember the name of it in Australia

406
00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:38,240
Speaker 1: where like they needed to do this and it got

407
00:23:38,320 --> 00:23:41,600
Speaker 1: sunk because some people started speaking out against it. All

408
00:23:41,600 --> 00:23:45,840
Speaker 1: of a sudden, the city council started turning changing their minds. Um.

409
00:23:46,040 --> 00:23:49,399
Speaker 1: I think Malcolm Turnbull forced a referendum to try to

410
00:23:49,440 --> 00:23:52,000
Speaker 1: gain favor with some of the residents there and it

411
00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:55,320
Speaker 1: was just a big mess. But this paper was basically

412
00:23:55,560 --> 00:23:57,680
Speaker 1: demonstrating side by side, you know, how bad it could

413
00:23:57,720 --> 00:23:59,760
Speaker 1: be and how good it could be, but a big

414
00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:04,840
Speaker 1: port of talking people into drinking water that somebody else

415
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:08,080
Speaker 1: peet out at some point or was contained poop at

416
00:24:08,119 --> 00:24:12,600
Speaker 1: some point. Like you really have to be committed to

417
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:15,280
Speaker 1: it and have a united front and basically show the

418
00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:20,040
Speaker 1: science saying this is harmless, there's nothing wrong with it.

419
00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:22,920
Speaker 1: It's it's more pure than anything we're feeding you now,

420
00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:27,400
Speaker 1: So just try and Singapore was apparently very successful with it. Yeah,

421
00:24:27,440 --> 00:24:29,200
Speaker 1: you really have to do that. Um I saw other

422
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 1: places where they say they try not to make a

423
00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:33,919
Speaker 1: too big of a show of it. But sure, I

424
00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:36,199
Speaker 1: think the opposite. I think you really got to like

425
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:40,040
Speaker 1: educate people so they know that this this water is

426
00:24:40,080 --> 00:24:43,040
Speaker 1: safe and taste fine, and I mean it's it's a

427
00:24:43,080 --> 00:24:46,520
Speaker 1: miracle of of modern technology. You know, it really is.

428
00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:49,840
Speaker 1: It totally is. And um, I'm with you, Like, I

429
00:24:49,880 --> 00:24:51,280
Speaker 1: think that's one of the things you need to be

430
00:24:51,359 --> 00:24:55,479
Speaker 1: upfront and and transparent about not letting people find out

431
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:58,600
Speaker 1: the hard way. Yeah, a new water is you know,

432
00:24:58,760 --> 00:25:01,280
Speaker 1: that's a great way to go because if you notice,

433
00:25:01,320 --> 00:25:06,320
Speaker 1: new water sounds nothing like fecal water. No, no, it

434
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 1: sounds like new coke. Right that hit. Yeah, So um,

435
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:15,800
Speaker 1: all right, let's follow this uh this stuff like if

436
00:25:15,880 --> 00:25:18,919
Speaker 1: you um, let's say it's raining one day, we're standing

437
00:25:18,920 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 1: in a sewer now chuck, Okay, you don't have it.

438
00:25:21,760 --> 00:25:23,800
Speaker 1: By the way, what we're about to describe takes about

439
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:28,960
Speaker 1: thirty six hours, depending on cool. So we're standing right

440
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:33,840
Speaker 1: outside of a sewage treatment plant, a water reclamation plant,

441
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:37,199
Speaker 1: and we are knee deep, our glosses are on and

442
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:39,200
Speaker 1: we're standing there and all this water is coming through.

443
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:46,159
Speaker 1: It's raining, so there's um stormwater runoff. I'm sorry, I

444
00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:51,520
Speaker 1: only have the one pair for him that's so gross. Um,

445
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:55,000
Speaker 1: and there's a possum floating by because because there's a

446
00:25:55,040 --> 00:25:58,520
Speaker 1: stormwater runoff, maybe there's a gun over there. Um. People

447
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:01,080
Speaker 1: are pooping and peek, so there's black water all around

448
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:03,640
Speaker 1: us as well. People are taking showers, so there's gray

449
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:08,760
Speaker 1: water coming through. I could not stop thinking about corn

450
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:11,160
Speaker 1: when I was researching this. Yeah, like, what at what

451
00:26:11,240 --> 00:26:14,920
Speaker 1: point does corn get filtered out? So about we're about

452
00:26:15,000 --> 00:26:16,880
Speaker 1: at that point. One of the first things that all

453
00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:19,719
Speaker 1: this water is going to do is go through a um,

454
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 1: a pretty good sized fence, right, and that's gonna hold

455
00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 1: back all of the big stuff, the possums. The tree

456
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:29,520
Speaker 1: branch is probably a gun unless it's a real tiny

457
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 1: little you know, old gambler's derringer, right, and all this

458
00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:35,439
Speaker 1: stuff is gonna get caught up on a fence and

459
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:38,520
Speaker 1: eventually somebody's gonna come along and scrape it off, sell

460
00:26:38,560 --> 00:26:42,200
Speaker 1: the gun, eat the possum, um, who do who knows

461
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:44,919
Speaker 1: what with the tree branch, and then um just basically

462
00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:47,720
Speaker 1: keep it clean for other stuff. That's that's the very

463
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:50,480
Speaker 1: first step that really before the water ever even goes

464
00:26:50,520 --> 00:26:52,600
Speaker 1: into the plant, it's going to pass through one of

465
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:56,440
Speaker 1: these grates. Yeah, or there may be like a vertical

466
00:26:56,520 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 1: conveyor system. So some so, some unlucky individual doesn't have

467
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:06,760
Speaker 1: to scoop pop poop possums and poop guns out of water. Right,

468
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:10,200
Speaker 1: A clean possum is bad enough, But one that's been

469
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:13,680
Speaker 1: bathed in black water, that's not good. Man. We're making jokes,

470
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:15,600
Speaker 1: but God bless those people who do this work. You know.

471
00:27:15,800 --> 00:27:18,680
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, for sure, for sure, hats off to them

472
00:27:18,680 --> 00:27:21,560
Speaker 1: because again they're keeping all of us safe and healthy.

473
00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:26,880
Speaker 1: It's right right, So well, no I'm keeping money. Um,

474
00:27:26,960 --> 00:27:30,399
Speaker 1: So we've gone through that first grade. Now there's another

475
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:33,719
Speaker 1: series of screens that are gonna pick out smaller stuff

476
00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:37,280
Speaker 1: like you know, bits of tire or little um car

477
00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:40,919
Speaker 1: accident pieces that run off with the storm water. You

478
00:27:40,960 --> 00:27:43,119
Speaker 1: know I'm talking about were like, you know, there's this

479
00:27:43,160 --> 00:27:45,400
Speaker 1: all sorts of glittery stuff in the road. All that

480
00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:49,000
Speaker 1: stuff gets picked up and course saying that kind of thing.

481
00:27:49,520 --> 00:27:52,840
Speaker 1: And now you're talking. Now you've got some water that's

482
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:56,080
Speaker 1: ready to be treated. Yeah. There there's uh something called

483
00:27:56,080 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 1: a grit chamber. Uh. They can be horizontal rated or

484
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:03,520
Speaker 1: vortex um. The vortex ones are kind of cool ed

485
00:28:03,560 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 1: called it a hydrocyclone. I think it's the same thing,

486
00:28:06,119 --> 00:28:09,720
Speaker 1: and it basically just spins the water and slings all

487
00:28:09,760 --> 00:28:13,560
Speaker 1: that grit and stuff, I guess a car accident stuff

488
00:28:14,240 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 1: right out to the side where it's filtered out. Do

489
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:20,280
Speaker 1: you remember at like the County Fair or whatever, that

490
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:27,160
Speaker 1: that ride that was like that? Yeah, Six Flags had. Yeah, God,

491
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:30,920
Speaker 1: it was called the what was it called? But yeah,

492
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:33,239
Speaker 1: it's spun and then the floor dropped out from under you.

493
00:28:33,920 --> 00:28:38,760
Speaker 1: Yeah right, it was probably called the Black Water. I

494
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:41,680
Speaker 1: can't remember. I did not like it, though, so I

495
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:44,120
Speaker 1: loved it. Six Flags had one of those times. Yeah,

496
00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:46,160
Speaker 1: they got rid of it pretty quickly, and of course,

497
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:47,960
Speaker 1: you know, you always get these Six Flags rumors. The

498
00:28:48,040 --> 00:28:50,960
Speaker 1: rumor was that some child didn't get slung out and

499
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,920
Speaker 1: like got trapped when the floor came back up, which

500
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 1: may have been true for all I know, but I

501
00:28:56,320 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: just I don't like a dizzying things. Yeah. The trick

502
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 1: was to just keep your focus on something inside in

503
00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 1: the middle, like the person across from you who was

504
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 1: moving relative to you, and that kept you from getting dizzy. Um. Okay,

505
00:29:11,960 --> 00:29:14,560
Speaker 1: so yes, so, but you can if you were so inclined.

506
00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:17,160
Speaker 1: And also I have to say, like reading all of

507
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 1: these different steps, I'm like, this would be kind of

508
00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: a fun ride actually, to like slide through here. If

509
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:25,200
Speaker 1: you're small, it's like you were just a little piece

510
00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:27,560
Speaker 1: of car headlight. To take it all the way through,

511
00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:31,840
Speaker 1: that would be pretty fun. So, um, now you've got

512
00:29:31,960 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 1: water that's ready to be treated. It's been um, the

513
00:29:34,760 --> 00:29:36,840
Speaker 1: grit's been taken out, the big pieces have been taken out,

514
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 1: but there's still plenty of stuff in it. And the

515
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 1: water is very turbid, right, there's a lot of suspended

516
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:46,480
Speaker 1: particulate matter just kind of floating around making the water murky.

517
00:29:46,640 --> 00:29:50,720
Speaker 1: And this is where it enters what's known as primary treatment,

518
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:55,560
Speaker 1: where basically, if there's any water reclamation plant anywhere in

519
00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: the world, it's going to go through this stage at

520
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:04,160
Speaker 1: least the primary treatment. Yeah, and um, I think it's uh,

521
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: you know, you think about during the daytime, there's a

522
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:10,240
Speaker 1: lot more activity, so uh, these facilities aren't meant to,

523
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 1: um like, operate at full board during the day and

524
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:16,080
Speaker 1: then be cool at night. Like they depend on a

525
00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:20,400
Speaker 1: very steady flow. And you know, pollution can't all bum

526
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:23,080
Speaker 1: rush it when everyone goes and takes their morning poop

527
00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:28,040
Speaker 1: so they have these um, these holding tanks basically where

528
00:30:28,080 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 1: they can hold this stuff during the day that's coming

529
00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:33,320
Speaker 1: in and just sort of balance it out and distribute

530
00:30:33,360 --> 00:30:35,560
Speaker 1: it over a twenty four hour period so it's not

531
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 1: the system's never overwhelmed basically. Yeah, it's called flow equalization,

532
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:43,520
Speaker 1: where if you imagine this is a river running through

533
00:30:43,920 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: they keep very tight control over the volume and the

534
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:50,320
Speaker 1: speed and the flow of the wastewater that's going through

535
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:52,880
Speaker 1: the plant, and so when that flow is exceeded, whatever

536
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:55,479
Speaker 1: is exceeded gets diverted off to one of these holding

537
00:30:55,480 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 1: basins so that when the flow goes down, they can

538
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:01,800
Speaker 1: move some from the from the holding basin into that

539
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 1: flow to make it so it's steady basically twenty four

540
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 1: hours a day. That's pretty ingenious stuff. If you ask me,

541
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 1: I didn't know that it is. Uh. And then one

542
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 1: more gross thing that we should mention. Yeah, we forgot this. Yeah,

543
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:17,800
Speaker 1: grease and fat um. You know, restaurants use grease traps,

544
00:31:17,840 --> 00:31:22,520
Speaker 1: but there's still so much um industrial and consumer like,

545
00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:25,320
Speaker 1: you know, think about anytime someone pours grease down their

546
00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 1: drain or oil down their drain in their house, which

547
00:31:28,560 --> 00:31:31,280
Speaker 1: you shouldn't be doing it. That stuff ends up in

548
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:34,520
Speaker 1: the wastewater treatment facility, and it all loves to hang

549
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:37,360
Speaker 1: out with each other and congeal up together. And there's

550
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:40,920
Speaker 1: something called fat bergs that form, and remember the one

551
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:45,840
Speaker 1: from London. Oh god, yeah, they're they're horrid. It's a

552
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 1: it's a huge, sometime multi ton ball of fat and grease.

553
00:31:51,680 --> 00:31:56,880
Speaker 1: And apparently they're really good at attracting um uh, flushable wipes.

554
00:31:57,760 --> 00:32:01,440
Speaker 1: Although you're gonna say the ladies, right, the ones that

555
00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:04,440
Speaker 1: have like gold medallions and chest hair stuck to them, Yes,

556
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:08,400
Speaker 1: but the normal fat birds, the ones with glasses and

557
00:32:08,440 --> 00:32:13,200
Speaker 1: buck teeth, they don't. So disco stew versus cletus a

558
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:17,000
Speaker 1: slight joke, exactly exactly. And I didn't know there's gonna

559
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:19,520
Speaker 1: be so Simpsons heavy. I had no idea either, but

560
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 1: but yeah, I remember learning about fatberg's back in I

561
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:24,239
Speaker 1: think it was two thousand and eleven something like that,

562
00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:27,520
Speaker 1: where London had one and and they were like, everybody

563
00:32:27,640 --> 00:32:33,240
Speaker 1: stopped flushing wipes, and um everyone said, no, you can

564
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:35,440
Speaker 1: just get the fat bergs out every once in a while.

565
00:32:35,680 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's that's horrid. But they have to get

566
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 1: those out, not just because the fat brigs are so gross.

567
00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:42,480
Speaker 1: But like you were saying, that can really screw with

568
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 1: the machinery in the UM in the water reclamation plant.

569
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:50,280
Speaker 1: So I guess that would be after grit potentially. Yeah.

570
00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:53,640
Speaker 1: They go into these aeration basins and they basically just

571
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:55,640
Speaker 1: inject a bunch of air in the bottom of the

572
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:58,040
Speaker 1: tanks or not even tanks. A lot of these are

573
00:32:58,040 --> 00:33:01,040
Speaker 1: open air that you know, we'll mention that later. It uh,

574
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:03,920
Speaker 1: it just creates bubbles and it aerates the water and

575
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:06,239
Speaker 1: that kind of just works everything free where it can

576
00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:08,040
Speaker 1: float to the top so you can just skim it

577
00:33:08,200 --> 00:33:11,680
Speaker 1: right on off and slap it on a roll and

578
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:17,640
Speaker 1: go to town. Yep. It's a great Mayo substitute. UM. Okay,

579
00:33:17,760 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 1: So now we finally enter this primary treatment. Although I

580
00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 1: would I would argue that removing grease and fat or

581
00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 1: I think the acronym is fog, fat, oil and grease UM,

582
00:33:28,920 --> 00:33:31,960
Speaker 1: that's part of primary treatment. But we'll say that it's

583
00:33:32,400 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 1: step negative point five. We finally reached step one, which

584
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 1: is where this turbid um uh water with all of

585
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 1: this kind of suspended particulate matter in it is going

586
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:49,320
Speaker 1: to be dumped into a tank. Usually UM well, I

587
00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 1: can't say usually, but there's like two main versions that

588
00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:55,160
Speaker 1: I've seen. One is a big round one, um, where

589
00:33:55,160 --> 00:33:57,760
Speaker 1: the water just flows into the middle and then just

590
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 1: kind of um slows down as it reaches the outside

591
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:04,080
Speaker 1: of the tank the or the edges of the tank.

592
00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:05,920
Speaker 1: The other is a makes a little more since it's

593
00:34:05,920 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 1: almost like a big swimming pool where the water comes

594
00:34:08,200 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 1: in one end and slows down as it makes its

595
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:12,640
Speaker 1: way towards the other. Either way, the point of this

596
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 1: is slowing the water down so that it continues to flow,

597
00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 1: but flows so slowly that all those suspended particles have

598
00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:23,000
Speaker 1: a chance to settle to the bottom under gravity and

599
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:26,200
Speaker 1: that sedimentation like we talked about, you know, way back

600
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:28,640
Speaker 1: in the day, where they used to take sewer water

601
00:34:28,920 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 1: and put it over a field as it was trickling

602
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:34,959
Speaker 1: through that soil under the force of gravity, that sedimentation.

603
00:34:35,200 --> 00:34:38,040
Speaker 1: We do the same thing today, except we usually do

604
00:34:38,080 --> 00:34:40,239
Speaker 1: it in a tank rather than a field. And then

605
00:34:40,280 --> 00:34:42,480
Speaker 1: we also may use some agents to speed it up,

606
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:45,720
Speaker 1: like flocculating agents, which is one of my favorite words,

607
00:34:46,080 --> 00:34:49,879
Speaker 1: maybe a good band name, I'm not sure. Um. There's

608
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:54,239
Speaker 1: also coalgulating agents, which is a terrible band name, and

609
00:34:54,840 --> 00:34:57,759
Speaker 1: they'll actually do what um, what they were trying to

610
00:34:57,800 --> 00:34:59,640
Speaker 1: do with the grease, which is kind of fluff it

611
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:02,400
Speaker 1: up or make it attracted to one another and and

612
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:05,439
Speaker 1: form larger solids that are way easier to get out

613
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:08,880
Speaker 1: of there. And after this primary treatment, the water looks

614
00:35:08,880 --> 00:35:12,239
Speaker 1: pretty good, but you would not drink it because you

615
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:16,600
Speaker 1: would die almost immediately of a horrible, terrible death. Yeah.

616
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:19,400
Speaker 1: And the the key with these primary clarifiers, which are

617
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:22,520
Speaker 1: these main tanks that they go into it first, is

618
00:35:22,600 --> 00:35:25,799
Speaker 1: there's something called settling velocity, and that's the speed at

619
00:35:25,840 --> 00:35:29,160
Speaker 1: which the particulate is going to settle. And we mentioned

620
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:31,719
Speaker 1: earlier the flow rate coming in. The reason they have

621
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:35,000
Speaker 1: to be just manic about how much stuff is coming

622
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:38,800
Speaker 1: in there is because your flow rate of the time

623
00:35:39,840 --> 00:35:43,520
Speaker 1: can never exceed that settling velocity. So, in other words,

624
00:35:43,600 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 1: the stuff coming in can't be coming in faster than

625
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:51,600
Speaker 1: all that nasty stuff can settle, right, right, And but

626
00:35:51,719 --> 00:35:54,600
Speaker 1: that nasty stuff does settle, and it forms what everybody

627
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:57,520
Speaker 1: calls sludge. But what I saw, Chuck, is that it

628
00:35:57,600 --> 00:36:00,280
Speaker 1: is not the term of art these days. The current

629
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:06,759
Speaker 1: term is raw primary bio solids, formerly sludge. That's the

630
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:11,400
Speaker 1: full name of it r P B s are p

631
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:15,960
Speaker 1: B f s s Oh that those are different words,

632
00:36:16,000 --> 00:36:19,040
Speaker 1: like formerly sludge is part of the name. Like they

633
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:22,520
Speaker 1: changed the name of sludge to raw raw primary bioa

634
00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:27,239
Speaker 1: solids formerly sludge like Prince basically yeah, right exactly, the

635
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:30,600
Speaker 1: aret just formerly known as Frits oh man lright b

636
00:36:31,400 --> 00:36:35,799
Speaker 1: yeah for real, Oh my gosh. So uh, things are

637
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:38,640
Speaker 1: gonna stink. There's no way to get around it. If

638
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:42,839
Speaker 1: you've been to a wastewater treatment plant, it's gonna smell. Um.

639
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:46,920
Speaker 1: That's why they're usually not close to residential areas, although

640
00:36:46,920 --> 00:36:48,879
Speaker 1: there is one in Atlanta or on the West Side

641
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:51,719
Speaker 1: that's just kind of right there. Yeah, I've never smelled it.

642
00:36:51,960 --> 00:36:54,920
Speaker 1: I haven't either. Um, it may be capped. Like if

643
00:36:55,000 --> 00:36:58,120
Speaker 1: you get complaints of odors, then basically, if you get

644
00:36:58,239 --> 00:37:00,120
Speaker 1: enough of them, then the city says, all right, we

645
00:37:00,160 --> 00:37:04,040
Speaker 1: gotta do something here. Yeah, maybe we need to put

646
00:37:04,080 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 1: a put a roof on this thing. It can't be

647
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:08,880
Speaker 1: open air any longer, or maybe we need it. And

648
00:37:08,880 --> 00:37:10,239
Speaker 1: this is probably what they do. And the one on

649
00:37:10,280 --> 00:37:12,560
Speaker 1: the west side is they they treat that air. They

650
00:37:12,640 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 1: ducked it out and treat it. Uh you know, old school. Uh,

651
00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:18,239
Speaker 1: they basically take a bunch of toilet paper rolls and

652
00:37:18,280 --> 00:37:22,399
Speaker 1: stuff them with dryer sheets, like the old dorm trick. Oh,

653
00:37:22,440 --> 00:37:25,440
Speaker 1: I remember we talked about that recently. I don't remember

654
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:31,239
Speaker 1: what episode though, how did we Yeah, yeah, um, yeah,

655
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:33,799
Speaker 1: I can't remember what it was, but yeah, yes we did.

656
00:37:34,000 --> 00:37:35,600
Speaker 1: But if you work in one of these plants, it's

657
00:37:35,640 --> 00:37:38,719
Speaker 1: it's not gonna It's not like working at a tulip

658
00:37:38,719 --> 00:37:43,760
Speaker 1: farm in Holland. You know, it would be a nice smell,

659
00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:46,680
Speaker 1: although I don't think tulips actually smell, but yeah, I'm

660
00:37:46,719 --> 00:37:50,440
Speaker 1: sure it's still better than whatever everybody at these reclamation

661
00:37:50,480 --> 00:37:52,800
Speaker 1: plants are smelling. But you know what, tulip farmers and

662
00:37:52,880 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 1: Holland smell great, right they do. They have a musky,

663
00:37:56,800 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 1: earthy odor. So um, okay, so yes it smells. I

664
00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:06,000
Speaker 1: thought that was a cute, hilarious little like sidetrack included

665
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:11,359
Speaker 1: in this for us UM. But this water, though, chuck right.

666
00:38:11,760 --> 00:38:18,000
Speaker 1: Once it's treated, primarily it looks fine, but it's not fine.

667
00:38:18,320 --> 00:38:20,520
Speaker 1: And for a very long time, like that was the

668
00:38:20,600 --> 00:38:24,960
Speaker 1: extent of water reclamation, you would scoop out the sludge

669
00:38:25,400 --> 00:38:30,000
Speaker 1: send that that primary um primary treated water out to

670
00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:32,839
Speaker 1: lakes and rivers, and then you go, jeez, why are

671
00:38:32,840 --> 00:38:35,840
Speaker 1: all these fish dying off? What's the problem? And the

672
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:38,799
Speaker 1: problem it turned out was that we really needed to

673
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:41,520
Speaker 1: add a second stage of treatment that even though you

674
00:38:41,560 --> 00:38:44,880
Speaker 1: couldn't see the bad stuff in there anymore because you've

675
00:38:44,920 --> 00:38:49,080
Speaker 1: taken it out, there was still plenty of microscopic material

676
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:52,160
Speaker 1: that could cause all sorts of havoc on the body

677
00:38:52,200 --> 00:38:54,800
Speaker 1: of water that you release this out to. And they're

678
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:59,760
Speaker 1: they're described by a term called um biochemical oxygen demand,

679
00:39:00,239 --> 00:39:04,640
Speaker 1: which is the amount of basically living aerobic bacteria in

680
00:39:05,080 --> 00:39:09,200
Speaker 1: this treated water and how much oxygen it will suck

681
00:39:09,239 --> 00:39:11,920
Speaker 1: out of that body of water, growing like forming an

682
00:39:11,920 --> 00:39:14,759
Speaker 1: algae bloom. And then as the algae bloom uses up

683
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 1: all the oxygen dies off, um the the bacteria that

684
00:39:19,120 --> 00:39:22,200
Speaker 1: eats those use up the rest of the oxygen and

685
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:24,440
Speaker 1: kill off a lot of fish and a lot of

686
00:39:24,440 --> 00:39:27,120
Speaker 1: other wildlife in that body of water that you dump

687
00:39:27,200 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 1: that sewage into. And so as they kind of figured

688
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:32,719
Speaker 1: out that there's this this this stuff you can't see

689
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:36,040
Speaker 1: in there, that's still a real problem, We've added a

690
00:39:36,200 --> 00:39:42,080
Speaker 1: secondary form of water treatment and that's really improved things tremendously. Yeah,

691
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:44,560
Speaker 1: so let's take another break and we'll talk about secondary

692
00:39:44,560 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 1: treatment and then eventually tertiary treatment right after this. All right,

693
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:14,759
Speaker 1: So where we left off was uh and and we

694
00:40:14,800 --> 00:40:18,160
Speaker 1: should also say too that like there are probably out

695
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:21,600
Speaker 1: of the fifteen thousand treatment plants in the country, I'm

696
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:25,919
Speaker 1: sure there's are still some that stopped at the primary treatment. Yeah,

697
00:40:25,920 --> 00:40:30,000
Speaker 1: I'm I'm positive too. But which is like, you can't

698
00:40:30,040 --> 00:40:32,839
Speaker 1: like that's that to me is an ecological crime. It's

699
00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:36,680
Speaker 1: an environmental crime. Oh absolutely, because it's so damaging to

700
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:40,239
Speaker 1: two water resources. It's just and in wildlife resources too.

701
00:40:40,280 --> 00:40:42,759
Speaker 1: It's just it should be a crime. It's not yet,

702
00:40:42,800 --> 00:40:46,600
Speaker 1: but hopefully it will be soon. Oh absolutely. Um. So

703
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:49,440
Speaker 1: secondary treatment is key and if you're if you're working

704
00:40:49,440 --> 00:40:54,360
Speaker 1: at a modern wastewater treatment facility, then you're definitely gonna

705
00:40:54,440 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 1: go with secondary treatment. I'm not sure the what year

706
00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 1: they started coming around it, um And actually I can

707
00:41:01,680 --> 00:41:05,719
Speaker 1: tell you something. So yeah, they're the main process of

708
00:41:05,760 --> 00:41:09,400
Speaker 1: secondary treatment is called activated sludge and it was developed

709
00:41:09,400 --> 00:41:13,359
Speaker 1: starting in nineteen twelve. Okay, so there are still some

710
00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:20,719
Speaker 1: that are behind the nineteen twelve barrier. Wow. Yeah, So

711
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:23,759
Speaker 1: in the secondary treatment This is where, um, it gets

712
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:27,399
Speaker 1: kind of interesting in a chemical way. You talked about

713
00:41:27,400 --> 00:41:30,080
Speaker 1: the algae blooms, which are no good, so to prevent

714
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:32,880
Speaker 1: stuff like that from happening. Um, what's going on in

715
00:41:32,880 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 1: this water is they're all these uh what's basically going

716
00:41:36,680 --> 00:41:40,560
Speaker 1: on is aerobic digestion. They're putting things in there that

717
00:41:40,600 --> 00:41:44,600
Speaker 1: can eat this stuff. Right, it's crazy like that. It's

718
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:48,200
Speaker 1: beneficial bacteria to the rescue, which is just wonderful. Like

719
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:51,920
Speaker 1: they're using. This is that biological treatment we referred to

720
00:41:52,000 --> 00:41:55,440
Speaker 1: earlier where they're saying, hey, there's all this bacteria and

721
00:41:55,480 --> 00:41:59,239
Speaker 1: all these other terrible um like little by products and

722
00:41:59,280 --> 00:42:01,160
Speaker 1: things that we don't on and they're everything from like

723
00:42:01,560 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 1: gasoline molecules to whatever um. And there are different types

724
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:11,440
Speaker 1: of bacteria, protozoa, even tiny tiny, tiny little invertebrates um

725
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 1: that live in the water most most of the time

726
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:18,600
Speaker 1: are microscopic and they'll eat this stuff. And if we

727
00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:23,280
Speaker 1: feed them this treated sewage, they'll make it even even pure.

728
00:42:23,800 --> 00:42:26,719
Speaker 1: And that's that's the secondary treatment, which I just love.

729
00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:28,719
Speaker 1: And we've been doing it for over a hundred years now,

730
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:30,799
Speaker 1: well most of us have been, I should say, yeah,

731
00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:32,520
Speaker 1: And it's crazy to think about. When you look at

732
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:35,520
Speaker 1: a wastewater treatment plant, they have about these cool mechanical

733
00:42:35,560 --> 00:42:41,799
Speaker 1: processes going on, but they're also growing, essentially and uh,

734
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:45,160
Speaker 1: living things there that are their little work buddies. They're

735
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:49,359
Speaker 1: their little cohorts that do part two. And they have to, uh,

736
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:52,640
Speaker 1: they have to foster life for these micro organisms, I

737
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:57,640
Speaker 1: assume on site. Right, Yeah, but from what I saw it,

738
00:42:57,640 --> 00:43:05,160
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a self aiming thing. Right. Well,

739
00:43:05,320 --> 00:43:07,319
Speaker 1: there probably are a few sea monkeys mixed in there.

740
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:09,440
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised. But from what I saw, with

741
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:13,799
Speaker 1: activated sledge, you're actually taking bacteria that's already alive and

742
00:43:13,880 --> 00:43:17,960
Speaker 1: eating the stuff in the sewage. You're just fostering it

743
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:21,680
Speaker 1: by pumping air and more specifically oxygen into the mix,

744
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:25,880
Speaker 1: which mixes the stuff up but also gives them oxygen

745
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:28,759
Speaker 1: to like really kind of be powered by. And so

746
00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:31,240
Speaker 1: they really go to town eating this. So not only

747
00:43:31,280 --> 00:43:34,560
Speaker 1: do they break down during this activated sledge process, these

748
00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:39,000
Speaker 1: these beneficial bacteria not only break down the stuff you're

749
00:43:39,000 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 1: trying to get out of the water, they also multiply

750
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:44,880
Speaker 1: and create more and more bacteria, so that part of

751
00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:48,480
Speaker 1: the activated sledge processes after being treated for several hours,

752
00:43:48,960 --> 00:43:52,279
Speaker 1: you move that treated secondary treated water out and then

753
00:43:52,280 --> 00:43:54,200
Speaker 1: you take the sludge that you let settle to the

754
00:43:54,200 --> 00:43:57,760
Speaker 1: bottom and pump it back through for another round, because

755
00:43:57,800 --> 00:44:00,759
Speaker 1: you've got all new bacteria that was produced in that

756
00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:03,160
Speaker 1: last round. And so it's kind of like this nice

757
00:44:03,200 --> 00:44:07,479
Speaker 1: circular closed system that is so effective. I saw that. Um.

758
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:09,800
Speaker 1: Usually at night they have to skim off some of

759
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:12,360
Speaker 1: the bacteria that's been produced that day because it's usually

760
00:44:12,440 --> 00:44:14,960
Speaker 1: so successful. Yeah, and I think they even pay someone

761
00:44:15,000 --> 00:44:17,080
Speaker 1: to stand there and go, what do you think of that?

762
00:44:17,320 --> 00:44:22,239
Speaker 1: How about one more round? It's a miracle. Every every

763
00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:25,080
Speaker 1: six hours after treatment process goes through, they just shout,

764
00:44:25,160 --> 00:44:30,120
Speaker 1: it's a miracle. So we're talking about like bacterial membranes,

765
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:33,600
Speaker 1: like a sheet of bacteria that might churn through this

766
00:44:33,920 --> 00:44:37,480
Speaker 1: one of these basins, or maybe an algae sheet or

767
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:40,000
Speaker 1: something like that. And you know, you gotta, like you said,

768
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:43,480
Speaker 1: you gotta keep this stuff alive. So the pH is important,

769
00:44:43,520 --> 00:44:46,359
Speaker 1: oxygen eating like you were talking about. The temperature has

770
00:44:46,360 --> 00:44:48,960
Speaker 1: got to be regulated. Um, you just have to make

771
00:44:48,960 --> 00:44:52,800
Speaker 1: sure these these little uh, these little booger state healthy

772
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:54,960
Speaker 1: and happy. You want them to be happy as can

773
00:44:54,960 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 1: be and as long as you're pumping oxygen there and

774
00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:00,000
Speaker 1: making the pH the way that you want it or

775
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:02,080
Speaker 1: the way that they wanted, they're they're going to be

776
00:45:02,120 --> 00:45:05,400
Speaker 1: happy and reproduce and multiply and go forth and spread

777
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:08,960
Speaker 1: the gospel. All right, So that is secondary treatment, and

778
00:45:09,000 --> 00:45:13,680
Speaker 1: that is apparently it gets to the point where the

779
00:45:13,800 --> 00:45:18,040
Speaker 1: United States has said, fine, dump it in a lake,

780
00:45:18,600 --> 00:45:20,880
Speaker 1: dump it in a river, dump it in the ocean.

781
00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:27,520
Speaker 1: It's perfectly. But then if you're if you really want

782
00:45:27,560 --> 00:45:29,719
Speaker 1: to kick things up a notch, you can go for

783
00:45:29,760 --> 00:45:34,560
Speaker 1: a tertiary treatment. This is just showing off. It really is,

784
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 1: isn't it. Another word for it is uh disinfection or

785
00:45:39,080 --> 00:45:44,280
Speaker 1: polishing um. And this is pretty interesting because you wouldn't

786
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:48,640
Speaker 1: know it, but there are tiny little things ranging from

787
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:52,520
Speaker 1: parasites to antibiotics, and we'll talk about all these a

788
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:56,440
Speaker 1: little more detail. To microplastics, like there are microplastics and

789
00:45:56,480 --> 00:45:59,840
Speaker 1: some soaps or just larger plastics that break down and

790
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:03,560
Speaker 1: some of that stuff gets through these first two processes

791
00:46:03,880 --> 00:46:07,040
Speaker 1: and there's actually plastic in the water. Yeah, I'm guessing

792
00:46:07,040 --> 00:46:09,680
Speaker 1: Emily doesn't use plastics in the soap she makes for

793
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:16,920
Speaker 1: Love Your Mama, Plastics, No, Um. But I had no

794
00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:18,839
Speaker 1: idea until I read this that that was the thing.

795
00:46:18,880 --> 00:46:21,120
Speaker 1: But it makes sense so like that that I guess

796
00:46:21,160 --> 00:46:25,719
Speaker 1: the exfoliating stuff. It's not all crushed walnuts, shells or

797
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:27,719
Speaker 1: anything like that. Like it would make a lot of

798
00:46:27,719 --> 00:46:29,799
Speaker 1: sense to use all of this waste plastic or it

799
00:46:29,840 --> 00:46:31,880
Speaker 1: makes sense, and I guess the strictly business sense. But

800
00:46:32,239 --> 00:46:35,279
Speaker 1: these plastics that they can be filtered out, but they

801
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:37,439
Speaker 1: can also be broken down to this point where they're

802
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:40,319
Speaker 1: they're microscopic as well, and so if you're just doing

803
00:46:40,360 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 1: primary treatment, you're sending a lot of those microplastics right

804
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:46,279
Speaker 1: out the other side, and that's allowed them to kind

805
00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:49,560
Speaker 1: of spread throughout the entire food chain. I saw this, Um,

806
00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:51,640
Speaker 1: I think it was a front line just the other

807
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:55,120
Speaker 1: night on plastics, and man, it was eye opening, Like

808
00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:57,040
Speaker 1: we need to do an episode on plastics. I've been

809
00:46:57,040 --> 00:46:59,080
Speaker 1: wanting to for a while, but this one kind of

810
00:46:59,120 --> 00:47:02,160
Speaker 1: lit a fire under my butt. Um. But it I mean,

811
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:04,799
Speaker 1: it's it's just everywhere, and so much so that not

812
00:47:04,880 --> 00:47:07,360
Speaker 1: just washing up on beaches, but it's in the water

813
00:47:07,440 --> 00:47:10,280
Speaker 1: we drink, right. So one of the things they figured

814
00:47:10,320 --> 00:47:15,480
Speaker 1: out is there are types of bacteria that eat plastics.

815
00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:17,800
Speaker 1: So now they're trying to figure out how to cultivate

816
00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:20,200
Speaker 1: those bacteria. And that's another thing to what what we

817
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:23,359
Speaker 1: were saying with that secondary treatment like activated sledge. It's

818
00:47:23,400 --> 00:47:26,680
Speaker 1: not just one kind of bacteria. It's a huge microbiome

819
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:29,920
Speaker 1: of bacteria that eat all sorts of different things, specialize

820
00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:32,200
Speaker 1: in all these different things. But when you have a big, huge,

821
00:47:32,440 --> 00:47:36,279
Speaker 1: diverse colony, you can get that much more stuff out.

822
00:47:36,719 --> 00:47:40,360
Speaker 1: And so there are some bacteria that eat my microplastics.

823
00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:44,080
Speaker 1: Then I also saw and this to me is the future.

824
00:47:44,600 --> 00:47:48,680
Speaker 1: It's um ozone oh three, three oxygen atoms put together,

825
00:47:49,360 --> 00:47:54,000
Speaker 1: and that's that from what I saw, Chuck, it handles

826
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:56,200
Speaker 1: every single thing that you would possibly want to get

827
00:47:56,200 --> 00:47:58,960
Speaker 1: out of water. Yeah, so with ozone, what they'll do

828
00:47:59,040 --> 00:48:01,239
Speaker 1: is they'll send it in a tetrical charge through the

829
00:48:01,280 --> 00:48:05,440
Speaker 1: water and these O two molecules disassociate from one another

830
00:48:05,560 --> 00:48:09,080
Speaker 1: and then recombined to form ozone oh three. And it's

831
00:48:09,120 --> 00:48:13,520
Speaker 1: just a kind of a superhero occident that does a great,

832
00:48:13,560 --> 00:48:16,640
Speaker 1: great job killing bacteria. I saw it as more like

833
00:48:16,680 --> 00:48:21,200
Speaker 1: a coked up John Belushi just running through a room

834
00:48:21,320 --> 00:48:23,880
Speaker 1: or something like that. That's how I saw it, because

835
00:48:23,920 --> 00:48:27,360
Speaker 1: it's like it just goes in there and and messes

836
00:48:27,400 --> 00:48:31,160
Speaker 1: stuff up. Like anything it touches, it just starts to

837
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:36,839
Speaker 1: break down. UM. Because it's so reactive that it basically says,

838
00:48:37,080 --> 00:48:39,960
Speaker 1: give me an electron, baby, and that whatever it just

839
00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:42,759
Speaker 1: took an electron from starts to fall apart. Yeah. You

840
00:48:42,760 --> 00:48:46,680
Speaker 1: can also chlorinate the wastewater. UM. You know we've talked

841
00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:50,279
Speaker 1: about chlorination before. Uh. It works pretty well, but it's

842
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:55,080
Speaker 1: not like a disinfectant. UM, and the chlorine itself can

843
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:58,319
Speaker 1: break down into toxic substances, which is not good because

844
00:48:58,360 --> 00:49:01,600
Speaker 1: then you gotta go treat that other tertiary methods and

845
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:04,520
Speaker 1: that's no good either. That's right, like chloroform I think

846
00:49:04,640 --> 00:49:07,680
Speaker 1: is a byproduct of it. And then there's UV radiation,

847
00:49:08,360 --> 00:49:12,120
Speaker 1: which takes a ton of energy. Uh, it can be effective,

848
00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:15,960
Speaker 1: but it's really expensive. Yeah it is, UM, but it

849
00:49:16,040 --> 00:49:18,920
Speaker 1: does work. I mean most things do not stand up

850
00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:22,799
Speaker 1: very well the UV radiation or UV light. UM. We

851
00:49:22,880 --> 00:49:27,200
Speaker 1: have one of those phone um cleaners, a UV phone cleaner.

852
00:49:27,239 --> 00:49:29,239
Speaker 1: You have you seen those? Yeah? I saw those on

853
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:33,719
Speaker 1: Shark Tank many years ago. Oh yeah, So, UM, I

854
00:49:34,560 --> 00:49:36,600
Speaker 1: can't tell if it works or not, but I think

855
00:49:36,600 --> 00:49:39,160
Speaker 1: it's does. I realized it's kind of a matter of

856
00:49:39,200 --> 00:49:42,759
Speaker 1: faith here, but it makes me feel good. Um. And

857
00:49:42,800 --> 00:49:46,080
Speaker 1: then there's another one called reverse os moses, which I

858
00:49:46,120 --> 00:49:48,960
Speaker 1: think deserves its own episode, or at least needs to

859
00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:52,120
Speaker 1: figure in like a desalination episode or something. But it

860
00:49:52,280 --> 00:49:56,239
Speaker 1: is um basically using a membrane that is so small

861
00:49:56,600 --> 00:49:59,560
Speaker 1: only water can pass through it. So when you push

862
00:50:00,360 --> 00:50:04,160
Speaker 1: sewage or treated water or anything um through this membrane

863
00:50:04,719 --> 00:50:07,320
Speaker 1: on the other side, water comes out. Everything else is

864
00:50:07,400 --> 00:50:10,880
Speaker 1: left behind. And what I saw about Singapore's new water

865
00:50:11,560 --> 00:50:13,920
Speaker 1: is not only do they use that very expensive, very

866
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:18,520
Speaker 1: effective UV radiation, they also use reverse osmosis in addition

867
00:50:18,560 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 1: to microfiltering to produce this new water, which is why

868
00:50:22,480 --> 00:50:24,520
Speaker 1: it's like so pure that they have to add it

869
00:50:24,560 --> 00:50:27,360
Speaker 1: back with you know, rain water to get some of

870
00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:32,160
Speaker 1: the minerals back into it. Yeah, reverse osmosis works rejects

871
00:50:32,160 --> 00:50:36,759
Speaker 1: I think nine percent of bacteria. Los Angeles and some

872
00:50:36,840 --> 00:50:39,719
Speaker 1: other cities are using this, like we said, cities that

873
00:50:39,760 --> 00:50:43,200
Speaker 1: have water shortages. Generally, it really depends on not only

874
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:46,399
Speaker 1: this membrane but tons of pressure UM up to six

875
00:50:46,520 --> 00:50:50,480
Speaker 1: hundred pounds per square inch, very highly pressurized, and if

876
00:50:50,520 --> 00:50:52,520
Speaker 1: you want to get what they're calling i p R

877
00:50:52,760 --> 00:50:58,560
Speaker 1: Indirect potable reuse, which is eventually you can drink this stuff.

878
00:50:59,840 --> 00:51:01,279
Speaker 1: I seen all kinds of problem. I mean, I guess

879
00:51:01,320 --> 00:51:03,919
Speaker 1: this new water, that's what their aim is. But you

880
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:10,400
Speaker 1: you take your tertiary tertiary tertiary tertiary treated water, you

881
00:51:10,440 --> 00:51:12,520
Speaker 1: hold that in a reservoir for a while, then it

882
00:51:12,600 --> 00:51:16,480
Speaker 1: goes through osmosis, then it's treated with either UV or

883
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:19,759
Speaker 1: ozone or both. Then it goes back to a reservoir

884
00:51:19,800 --> 00:51:23,520
Speaker 1: for about six months for just natural processes to go

885
00:51:23,680 --> 00:51:26,359
Speaker 1: to go to work, and then it gets sent just

886
00:51:26,400 --> 00:51:30,280
Speaker 1: through the regular standard water treatment that everyone else's water

887
00:51:30,360 --> 00:51:35,200
Speaker 1: goes through. Wow, that's like l A's doing that. I

888
00:51:35,239 --> 00:51:38,480
Speaker 1: think if if you're doing i PR right, then you're

889
00:51:38,520 --> 00:51:41,840
Speaker 1: doing many of these steps in concert with one another

890
00:51:42,320 --> 00:51:44,680
Speaker 1: and then sending it through the regular system in the end.

891
00:51:46,000 --> 00:51:49,000
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are different ways in different places, but uh,

892
00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:53,240
Speaker 1: it's pretty amazing that you can you can drink water

893
00:51:53,320 --> 00:51:55,960
Speaker 1: that goes down your toilet eventually, and it's probably better

894
00:51:56,200 --> 00:52:00,640
Speaker 1: than a lot of city water. Yeah, oh for sure. Um.

895
00:52:00,719 --> 00:52:03,280
Speaker 1: One of the things that that got me chuck um

896
00:52:03,480 --> 00:52:06,680
Speaker 1: was that we still do that thing where we take

897
00:52:06,719 --> 00:52:11,239
Speaker 1: that sludge and spread it over um farmland, create those

898
00:52:11,239 --> 00:52:15,160
Speaker 1: sewage farms. So everything's kind of come back full circle again. Um.

899
00:52:15,239 --> 00:52:19,440
Speaker 1: And we also use semi semi treated water for like, um,

900
00:52:19,480 --> 00:52:23,359
Speaker 1: like like you're getting parks and stuff like that. So

901
00:52:23,680 --> 00:52:27,000
Speaker 1: there's like a there's there's um a lot of good

902
00:52:27,120 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 1: uses for for water that's not quite indirect potable reuse quality,

903
00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:37,000
Speaker 1: but can it is still like good enough you just

904
00:52:37,040 --> 00:52:40,719
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to drink it, yeah, or you can just

905
00:52:40,800 --> 00:52:43,280
Speaker 1: dump it back into your local river lake or something

906
00:52:43,320 --> 00:52:47,320
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, that's always great. And then the just lastly,

907
00:52:47,440 --> 00:52:49,839
Speaker 1: real quick, UM, the future of this stuff that I

908
00:52:49,880 --> 00:52:54,280
Speaker 1: saw is that they're getting so good at filtering stuff

909
00:52:54,320 --> 00:52:57,160
Speaker 1: out that they're like, well, wait a minute, we're accumulating

910
00:52:57,160 --> 00:53:00,640
Speaker 1: a lot of this plastic um, so let's start collecting

911
00:53:00,640 --> 00:53:04,520
Speaker 1: it and selling it for reuse, right, which is which

912
00:53:04,560 --> 00:53:08,040
Speaker 1: is wonderful because I mean, otherwise they're just diverting this

913
00:53:08,080 --> 00:53:10,880
Speaker 1: stuff to a landfill. Or they're getting so good at

914
00:53:10,920 --> 00:53:14,040
Speaker 1: getting like phosphorus or nitrogen out, well, let's make a

915
00:53:14,080 --> 00:53:17,960
Speaker 1: sideline of selling fertilizer to farmers or something like that. Um.

916
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:20,600
Speaker 1: Rather than adding more to the water supply, will just

917
00:53:20,640 --> 00:53:22,959
Speaker 1: reuse the stuff that didn't get used the first time.

918
00:53:23,440 --> 00:53:28,320
Speaker 1: And then um, they're also reusing cellulose fiber from used

919
00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:33,240
Speaker 1: toilet paper, and that amazing is amazing. So they're filtering

920
00:53:33,239 --> 00:53:36,680
Speaker 1: out cellulose that was part of toilet paper at one point,

921
00:53:36,680 --> 00:53:40,719
Speaker 1: and they're using it for everything from insulation to roadways

922
00:53:40,760 --> 00:53:43,719
Speaker 1: I believe, which I didn't know they used cellulos and roadways,

923
00:53:43,760 --> 00:53:50,080
Speaker 1: but by god they do now. So that's wastewater treatment. Everybody,

924
00:53:50,280 --> 00:53:53,160
Speaker 1: one of those great engineering episodes that we do from

925
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:56,080
Speaker 1: time to time. I hope you enjoyed it. Yeah, I

926
00:53:56,120 --> 00:53:57,680
Speaker 1: got one more. We always like to think of our

927
00:53:57,719 --> 00:54:00,600
Speaker 1: friends in New York because that's sort of the gold

928
00:54:00,680 --> 00:54:04,879
Speaker 1: standard of huge city doing amazing things. And there are

929
00:54:04,880 --> 00:54:08,799
Speaker 1: fourteen plants in New York City alone, and they how

930
00:54:08,800 --> 00:54:10,760
Speaker 1: many gallons of water per day? Do you think they treat?

931
00:54:10,840 --> 00:54:16,560
Speaker 1: Just take a stab? One point three billion gallons of

932
00:54:16,560 --> 00:54:21,680
Speaker 1: water per day? Wow? I was apparently the statistic I

933
00:54:21,719 --> 00:54:26,040
Speaker 1: saw said, if you that is enough over eight years

934
00:54:26,080 --> 00:54:30,000
Speaker 1: to fill the entire Dead Sea with toilet water. Wow,

935
00:54:30,719 --> 00:54:33,560
Speaker 1: which you should not do. Don't do it the dead

936
00:54:33,560 --> 00:54:37,600
Speaker 1: Sea special. Do you got anything else? They've got nothing else? Uh, Well,

937
00:54:37,640 --> 00:54:39,759
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about wastewater, just show

938
00:54:39,840 --> 00:54:42,440
Speaker 1: up at your local wastewater treatment plan or you're sorry,

939
00:54:42,480 --> 00:54:46,560
Speaker 1: your water recap water resource reclamation plant and they'll probably

940
00:54:46,560 --> 00:54:49,239
Speaker 1: give you a tour, especially if they're friendly types. And

941
00:54:49,280 --> 00:54:54,239
Speaker 1: since I said that, it's time for the listener, mayo, Yeah,

942
00:54:54,239 --> 00:54:55,800
Speaker 1: show up and say I want to see the artists

943
00:54:55,800 --> 00:54:59,560
Speaker 1: formerly known as sludge, right but also doing a really

944
00:54:59,600 --> 00:55:05,000
Speaker 1: like kind a hostile demanding way. Yeah. Absolutely, Um, all right,

945
00:55:05,040 --> 00:55:08,040
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this from a teacher. We love hearing

946
00:55:08,040 --> 00:55:13,400
Speaker 1: from our teachers here during the worldwide lockdown. Now that

947
00:55:13,440 --> 00:55:16,799
Speaker 1: Georgia is finally on board. Yeah, they just found out

948
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:20,440
Speaker 1: that you could be a contagious and not show symptoms yesterday.

949
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:24,280
Speaker 1: I'm so angry about that. It's nuts. My daughter literally

950
00:55:24,360 --> 00:55:27,120
Speaker 1: knew that before our governor said he did. Yeah, for

951
00:55:27,239 --> 00:55:31,520
Speaker 1: probably a good month, I would guess. Probably. Yeah, you

952
00:55:31,520 --> 00:55:33,560
Speaker 1: should listen to our show. We talked about it last week,

953
00:55:33,960 --> 00:55:36,719
Speaker 1: well in real time, weeks ago by the time this

954
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:40,440
Speaker 1: comes out. All right, So this is from a teacher

955
00:55:40,560 --> 00:55:44,520
Speaker 1: named j Alexander in the mathematics department at l h S.

956
00:55:45,000 --> 00:55:47,440
Speaker 1: Good morning, guys. I wanted to thank you for the

957
00:55:47,520 --> 00:55:51,000
Speaker 1: distraction episodes. As a teacher working from home, I've been

958
00:55:51,040 --> 00:55:54,360
Speaker 1: helping my one and thirty plus students and their parents

959
00:55:54,480 --> 00:55:58,160
Speaker 1: navigate this challenge while also making sure my two biological

960
00:55:58,239 --> 00:56:00,920
Speaker 1: kiddos are doing their work as well. With the governor

961
00:56:00,960 --> 00:56:02,520
Speaker 1: closing schools for the rest of the year, I woke

962
00:56:02,560 --> 00:56:05,280
Speaker 1: up pretty sad this morning. I'm sad for my seniors.

963
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:08,480
Speaker 1: We didn't know the last time we were together would

964
00:56:08,520 --> 00:56:11,200
Speaker 1: truly be the last time. I was thinking about that

965
00:56:11,320 --> 00:56:14,279
Speaker 1: the other day too, man, Like, that's just it's all sad.

966
00:56:14,320 --> 00:56:18,520
Speaker 1: But seniors and prom and last day's school and all

967
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:21,120
Speaker 1: that fun stuff is just to to miss that as

968
00:56:21,800 --> 00:56:25,319
Speaker 1: it just sucks. Yeah, it really does. Do you know

969
00:56:25,400 --> 00:56:27,360
Speaker 1: what they're gonna do? Is it like you're just gonna

970
00:56:27,480 --> 00:56:29,360
Speaker 1: continue on the rest of the year from home and

971
00:56:29,400 --> 00:56:32,239
Speaker 1: still graduate on time. I think everyone's just trying to

972
00:56:32,280 --> 00:56:34,959
Speaker 1: figure this out in real time. Man, My own daughter

973
00:56:35,040 --> 00:56:37,120
Speaker 1: is graduating from her preschool, so she's not going to

974
00:56:37,200 --> 00:56:40,759
Speaker 1: see a lot of these kids ever. Again, just super sad.

975
00:56:41,400 --> 00:56:44,920
Speaker 1: That's sad, but also congratulations. Yeah, well they're they're doing

976
00:56:44,960 --> 00:56:47,560
Speaker 1: these uh two times a week, these zoom meetings, which

977
00:56:47,560 --> 00:56:49,120
Speaker 1: is kind of fun to see all these kids on there,

978
00:56:49,600 --> 00:56:52,920
Speaker 1: I'll bet just crawling around not paying attention. They're actually

979
00:56:52,960 --> 00:56:56,120
Speaker 1: pretty locked in. It's it's very impressive. Oh really, Yeah,

980
00:56:56,120 --> 00:56:57,759
Speaker 1: their teachers are on there and they kind of are

981
00:56:57,840 --> 00:56:59,399
Speaker 1: in a rhythm. It's it's kind of cool to see.

982
00:56:59,480 --> 00:57:01,759
Speaker 1: That's cool, all right, so let's just continue here. I'm

983
00:57:01,760 --> 00:57:03,760
Speaker 1: sad for my own kids who won't see their friends

984
00:57:03,760 --> 00:57:06,359
Speaker 1: and teachers for the rest of the school year. I'm

985
00:57:06,360 --> 00:57:08,640
Speaker 1: sad for all my coworkers who are retiring this year.

986
00:57:09,320 --> 00:57:11,960
Speaker 1: They didn't plan for it to end this way, although

987
00:57:12,080 --> 00:57:18,080
Speaker 1: quite frankly, they may be pretty stumped early retirement. Uh,

988
00:57:18,160 --> 00:57:20,680
Speaker 1: they're definitely silver lining, zough. I'm seven months pregnant and

989
00:57:20,720 --> 00:57:23,280
Speaker 1: don't mind working in my pajamas. The weather is great

990
00:57:23,280 --> 00:57:25,600
Speaker 1: in your podcast is keeping me sane. So thank you

991
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:28,040
Speaker 1: all so much for being my normal in this twilight

992
00:57:28,120 --> 00:57:30,880
Speaker 1: zone world. I pray that you and your families are

993
00:57:30,920 --> 00:57:34,720
Speaker 1: safe and healthy. And again, that is J Alexander the

994
00:57:34,800 --> 00:57:38,480
Speaker 1: letter J from the Mathematics department at l h S

995
00:57:38,880 --> 00:57:42,000
Speaker 1: and right back at you two from us to you, um,

996
00:57:42,040 --> 00:57:44,520
Speaker 1: thank you very much, and thanks to everybody out there

997
00:57:44,520 --> 00:57:47,919
Speaker 1: sending us good vibes. We're sending them right back out

998
00:57:48,000 --> 00:57:51,600
Speaker 1: to the entire world. It's basically like a d light

999
00:57:51,720 --> 00:57:54,680
Speaker 1: concert in here. That's right. If you want to get

1000
00:57:54,720 --> 00:57:57,120
Speaker 1: in touch with us during this weird time or any time,

1001
00:57:57,400 --> 00:58:00,400
Speaker 1: you can send us an email, wrap it up, spank

1002
00:58:00,440 --> 00:58:02,920
Speaker 1: it on the bottom, hit it with the lysol wipe,

1003
00:58:03,120 --> 00:58:07,000
Speaker 1: and send it to Stuff Podcasts at iHeart radio dot

1004
00:58:07,000 --> 00:58:12,320
Speaker 1: com m H. Stuff You Should Know is a production

1005
00:58:12,360 --> 00:58:15,080
Speaker 1: of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts. For

1006
00:58:15,160 --> 00:58:17,960
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

1007
00:58:18,000 --> 00:58:22,880
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H