WEBVTT - How Wastewater Treatment Works 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:03.400 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:12.720 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:12.800 --> 0:00:16.079 I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there, 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:20.919 and Jerry just ghosted us like a catfish. The bank 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:23.880 is how they put it, and uh, that of course 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:28.080 makes the Stuff you Should Know from the abyss. How 0:00:28.160 --> 0:00:32.680 you doing, man, I'm just doing great. Everything is totally normal. 0:00:32.920 --> 0:00:36.080 Everything feels comfortable and fun, so I'm good. How about you? 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:40.559 Have you done anything really weird in the last two weeks? Uh? 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:44.839 I think a more legit question would be, what have 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:49.519 I not done that's that's weird? What's the weirdest thing 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:52.080 you've done? I'm trying to think like I shouldn't have 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:54.400 said anything, because I really haven't done anything that weird. 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:58.560 Have just been more like, um, I've developed this weird 0:00:58.720 --> 0:01:02.680 kind of I guess it's indigestion, which I don't get. 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:06.399 I have like an iron constitution, but I don't know 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:08.960 if it's because I've been pounding vitamins lately and they 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:11.840 keep lodging in this one spot in my esophagus. I 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:14.800 think there's a weird bend in there somewhere um, and 0:01:14.840 --> 0:01:17.840 so I constantly feel like I've got some throw up 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:21.039 just sitting in the middle of my chest. That's a 0:01:21.080 --> 0:01:24.039 new development. And I've noticed that when I don't take 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:28.680 vitamins it still happens. So I'm I'm kind of up 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:30.720 the creek on that respect. And I know that's not 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:34.280 doing anything weird, but um, I mean, I guess that 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:37.840 aside from that and setting out box traps for coyotes 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:40.200 and then eating the coyotes when I catch them, those 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.120 are the two weirdest things, right, It's not bad. What 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:46.040 about you. I haven't really done anything weird. I shaved. 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:47.960 I shaved my head, but that was just because I 0:01:48.040 --> 0:01:53.960 was bored and hot. Nice Britney spears. Yeah, I mean 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:55.600 I haven't. You know, usually do that once a year, 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:57.240 and I haven't done it in a few years for 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:00.360 some reason. So, yeah, it has been a little while 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.080 you've been rocking the grown out stuff. I know. I 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:05.920 thought about shaving my beard too, just for funzies, but oh, 0:02:06.960 --> 0:02:08.480 I don't know. I think now is the time to 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:10.400 try these weird things where no one's gonna see you 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:14.160 for six weeks. Yeah. As a matter of fact, after 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:16.640 we get done recording, I have a date with you 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:19.280 me to go cut my hair because I've got the 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:24.119 COVID hair. It is really long, real, it's just out 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:27.040 of control. You know that point where when you grow 0:02:27.760 --> 0:02:30.640 your finger nails out too far and they just turn 0:02:30.680 --> 0:02:32.200 that corner. Well, you wouldn't know it because you bite 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:36.440 your fingernails, right. I quit biting my fingernails a while ago. Okay, 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:38.920 so so maybe you've experienced this. There's a point, and 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:42.280 it can It can happen within an hour where they're 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:44.640 just too close to being too long, and then all 0:02:44.639 --> 0:02:47.200 of a sudden they turn this corner and you can't 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:51.560 go like another minute with them being unclipped. They just 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:53.800 feel so gross all of a sudden. That's how my 0:02:53.880 --> 0:02:56.240 hair feels right now. I think the corner of your 0:02:56.240 --> 0:03:00.480 fingernails turn is called the tip of your finger start 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:07.120 wrapping around. Yeah, man, so, um, I guess we're talking 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:10.600 wastewater treatment then obviously with all this fingernail talk. Yeah, 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:13.480 and I gotta say, um, who did this one? Did 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:16.080 Ed put this together for us? Ed did this with 0:03:16.120 --> 0:03:19.880 a high fever from what I understand, right, non non 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:23.000 COVID related, we should point out, Yeah, he was just sick. 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:25.920 He came through. He's doing Okay, he's on the mend 0:03:26.560 --> 0:03:28.560 um but yeah, he he turned this in. He's like, 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:30.240 I I had a fever when I wrote this, So 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:32.520 it might not make that much sense, but it did. 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:34.880 I think it did, But I do we should say 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.560 if you work in wastewater treatment. What I did find 0:03:37.560 --> 0:03:42.280 out doing supplementary research was that there are clearly a 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:46.200 lot of like there are almost fifteen thousand treatment plants 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:47.920 in the United States, and they're clearly a bunch of 0:03:47.920 --> 0:03:50.360 different ways to do it. Because I saw a bunch 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.720 of other different stuff. So let's just say what we're 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:57.400 going to talk about is one way that it can go. Yeah, 0:03:57.440 --> 0:03:59.520 and we'll probably touch on some of the other ones 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:01.880 that you know people use, but there's just no way 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:04.080 we could cover everything. And the other thing that I 0:04:04.120 --> 0:04:09.280 saw too, is there's a UM there's a real sentiment 0:04:09.360 --> 0:04:13.320 that the United States, in particulars infrastructure for treating wastewater 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:17.880 UM is aging really rapidly, like we need to do 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:21.720 something about it soon. I saw some some some watched 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:24.599 all groups that we need to spend about two billion 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:27.960 dollars to upgrade our wastewater treatment around the country. Somebody 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:31.400 else has six billion, but everybody's saying, wait, wait, wait, okay, 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:36.400 that's great because we're using really antiquated methods that work. 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.040 They work pretty well, but they're having a lot of 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:44.080 trouble keeping up with um. The jones with the Jones 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:47.200 is yes, because the jones is now. Because we live 0:04:47.240 --> 0:04:51.640 amongst like plastic everywhere they poop and pee plastic, they 0:04:51.640 --> 0:04:56.200 throw stuff in antibiotics into their toilets. There's like a 0:04:56.279 --> 0:05:00.760 different world than the wastewater treatment plants where built to 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.360 to handle like in the in the early and mid 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.920 twentieth century. This is like a real opportunity to update 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:09.919 our infrastructure as we rebuild it. So hopefully we'll be 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:14.039 doing that hopefully. And you know what, two billion doesn't 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:15.719 sound like a lot of money. I thought I was 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:18.200 going to hear a number like one trillion. That's what 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:20.600 I would have thought too. I was actually kind of surprised. 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:22.839 I went back and looked, and now they were talking 0:05:22.880 --> 0:05:26.200 about the wastewater treatment. So I don't know if it's 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:29.920 I know that some of the technologies are very expensive, 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:33.159 and maybe they're saying to rebuild as is, it would 0:05:33.200 --> 0:05:35.640 be two hundred and forty two six hundred billion, but 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:39.000 maybe to to implement some of them more high tech 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:41.919 stuff that that has come along in the last few years, 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:44.760 maybe that would be a little more high dollar. All right, 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:48.400 well let's talk about low dollar, okay, by way of history, 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:53.240 because at the beginning of wastewater treatment, well you can't 0:05:53.279 --> 0:05:55.520 even call it wastewater treatment, it was just calling It 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:57.680 was basically like how we dealt with wastewater. We weren't 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:01.800 treating it at all. The very most rudimentary thing that 0:06:01.839 --> 0:06:07.120 you still can see in places our outhouses and latrines, 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:11.720 which trine is just an outhouse or an outhouse is 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:13.640 just a little trine with a little a little bit 0:06:13.640 --> 0:06:16.760 of privacy involved. Yeah, and you know what, I was 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:19.880 looking up out houses. They're still around. There's like composting 0:06:19.920 --> 0:06:22.920 toilets and urine diverters and all sorts of like hippie 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:25.520 stuff you can get into if you want. But one 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.320 thing I kept seeing was, you know, like there's always 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:31.880 like a crescent moon cut out on the outhouse. Uh, yeah, 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:35.039 I've seen those. It's like almost synonymous with an outous. 0:06:35.160 --> 0:06:38.000 It looks weird without one to me. So I looked 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:40.920 it up and it turns out that back in colonial times, 0:06:41.040 --> 0:06:46.720 when um, there was a preliterate population. The crescent moon 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:50.080 indicated that the outhouse was for women, and a star 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:55.360 cutout indicated it was for men. The mystery from never 0:06:55.400 --> 0:06:58.960 had any any idea. Yeah, I learned that visiting Mount Vernon. 0:07:00.400 --> 0:07:02.480 That would be a good place to learn that for sure. 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:05.320 And George Washington's just had a big cutout of a 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:10.160 marijuana leaf. He is only for him. Yeah, he'd come 0:07:10.200 --> 0:07:12.960 home from working in the fields and Martha would have 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:15.960 a big bowl, big fat bowl waiting for him at 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:19.360 the end of the day. Very nice. Uh So if 0:07:19.360 --> 0:07:22.080 you're talking about twentieth century, you would think like, yeah, 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:24.320 but surely when we got to the twentieth century they 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:29.840 were really handling the sewage properly, not so at all. Um, 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.320 just you know, it was well into the twentieth century 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:36.040 when we still had suburbs with people living them in 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:40.480 them with no sewer connections and outhouses and this was 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:42.400 this is kind of hard to believe, but I guess 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:46.559 in more rural areas. But that even says suburbs. Yeah, 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:48.760 he made it sound like basically if you went into 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:53.160 like um, I don't know, uh, Dunwoodie or something like that, 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:55.400 which is a suburb of Atlanta. Okay, you would have 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:58.000 found out houses in the fifties, which maybe that's true. 0:07:58.040 --> 0:07:59.440 I don't know. I mean, if you think about it, 0:07:59.480 --> 0:08:01.440 a septic tank is really just kind of a fancy 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:06.320 ladrine pit. Yeah. But it's interesting too because in uh 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:10.440 like six b C. There were places that, you know, 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:12.360 it's funny because it seems like there's a lot of 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:16.800 advanced thinking in ancient times that goes by the wayside 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:18.920 for just thousands of years and then it comes back. 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:22.280 But in what is now modern Syria, they actually had 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:26.160 drainage pipes and stuff that fed wastewater from the outhouses, 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:29.520 uh basically to the streets and rivers. So it's not 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:31.520 like it was great, but it at least got it 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:33.640 out of there. They didn't have a lot of follow 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:36.120 through on their ideas. Great first idea, and then they 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.160 were like, I just forget it after that pretty much. 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:42.040 But hey, have you ever heard why things were like 0:08:42.320 --> 0:08:45.480 possibly more advanced or very advanced early on and then 0:08:45.520 --> 0:08:48.120 they went dark for a little while. I feel like 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:50.960 we talked about this before. It must have been the 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:53.920 Enlightenment episode, because it's them. It was the Dark Ages 0:08:53.960 --> 0:08:56.840 the Middle Ages when the Church took over and basically 0:08:56.840 --> 0:09:01.160 said science can can burn hell. Amazing, that works. Yeah, 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:04.240 it's crazy. And then the Enlightenment came along and said, no, 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:07.040 science is back everybody, and we started to have like 0:09:07.520 --> 0:09:11.640 sewage treatment again, which I mean not coincidentally, that's around 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:15.120 the time we started taking sewage treatment seriously. And it 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:17.240 wasn't just that we like got a lot smarter all 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:20.400 of a sudden from the Enlightenment, which definitely was partially 0:09:20.440 --> 0:09:23.600 the case, but there were way more people, and so 0:09:23.720 --> 0:09:26.600 things like digging a hole in the ground, pooping and 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:29.360 peeing into it and then once it got full, you know, 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:34.120 burying it and digging another hole. UM methods like that 0:09:34.280 --> 0:09:37.480 just became unsustainable. Or putting all of your sewage out 0:09:37.520 --> 0:09:40.319 into the street, it became unsustainable just because there were 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:43.319 so many people. Yeah, and there was poop and p 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:46.920 literally everywhere in the streets and the rivers and the lakes. 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:51.720 And the first um sort of pushed towards treating the 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:55.000 sewage was literally just because the smell. Eventually they were like, 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:58.839 this is terrible to live amongst. Maybe we could do something, 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:01.760 Maybe we could throw some time or some charcoal or 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:04.400 some sawdust on this stuff, and at least and it 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:08.800 won't be safe, but we won't be like walking around gagging. Right, 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:11.439 They're like, at least there are some sawdust on there. 0:10:11.520 --> 0:10:17.079 Some do something for God's sake. Sure, so they did 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:20.840 do that, right, Um, But that's still it still wasn't enough. 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.440 I mean, people were still just they they I think 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:27.200 in our Great Stink episode, Joseph basil Get was um 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.800 just revered as a saint basically for saving people by 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:35.680 you know, diverting um sewage into sewers away from people's 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.640 drinking water and stuff. But even still, I think he 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:41.160 was also responsible for helping design some of the earliest 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:45.120 wastewater treatment plants. But um still around the time and 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:49.760 into the twentieth century, like there it was basically like 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:51.880 here's a sewer, and then we're just gonna make the 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:55.280 sewer come out downstream of our of our drinking water supply, 0:10:55.679 --> 0:11:01.640 and then problem solved. Sorry for Shelbyville, but exactly chew 0:11:01.679 --> 0:11:05.720 on it, Shelby Bill chew on our fecal matter. But 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:07.880 but that was kind of exactly what happened if you 0:11:07.920 --> 0:11:10.320 were down river, downstream or you know, on the other 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:12.920 side of the lake from this area. You know, you 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:15.520 got their poop in your backyard and you didn't want that. 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:19.480 So eventually people started realizing that there are things that 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:24.760 you can do to make water better and then put 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:27.240 it into rivers and lakes and streams and even the 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:30.800 ocean and seas. And that is basically where we're at 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:35.720 right now with wastewater treatment, which is we poop and 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:38.200 pee and we flushed stuff into the sewer, and then 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:41.280 the stuff goes into a wastewater treatment plant. We do 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:44.280 some stuff to it, and then we put out slightly 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:48.160 better than sewage water into the rivers and lakes and 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:51.960 streams and and hope for the best. Yeah, that's right. Um. 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:53.840 Some of the early things they also did was like 0:11:53.880 --> 0:11:58.800 fled afield with wastewater. Uh. This allowed sedimentation, which is 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:02.600 the you know, the the feces basically settling, and then 0:12:02.920 --> 0:12:05.360 actually the plants can help out. The plants take up 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:08.719 all that gross stuff as water that they used to 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.560 grow and it kind of traps it in there, which 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:14.439 is nice, But then you sell those plants to Shelbyville. 0:12:14.760 --> 0:12:18.120 That's right, But it still didn't change, It didn't make 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:21.560 anything less harmful. Uh. As far as bacteria goes. So 0:12:21.640 --> 0:12:26.040 that's why typhoid and cholera and everything was a huge problem. 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:31.680 And that's why wastewater maybe the biggest advancement in life 0:12:31.679 --> 0:12:35.280 saving device like that in penicillin our neck, neck and neck. 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:39.079 I think, yeah, really, I mean, like just not being 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:42.720 around water that contains all sorts of harmful bacteria that 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:45.840 people pooped out. That's definitely going to improve your lifespan 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:49.800 for sure. And that that whole thing about putting sewage 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:52.800 onto a field and letting the plants deal with it 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:56.280 that's actually still around. That's like a that's a a 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:59.760 sensible way to treat sewage because not only do the 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.319 plan ants you know, take care of it, but as 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.320 it trickles down through the soil to the groundwater, there's 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:07.480 all sorts of microbes and minerals and all sorts of 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:10.640 ions that pick up that harmful stuff and that actually 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:14.040 purifies the water. The problem is is once you get 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:17.480 too many people, which can happen really quickly, that that 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:21.000 soil and those plants get overwhelmed and a lot of 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:23.840 bad stuff gets through and then you're polluting the groundwater. 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:26.600 So as more and more people came along, we realized 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:28.480 we had to come up with technology. We couldn't just 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:33.160 rely on soil anymore. Yeah. Um, Massachusetts was a little 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:37.560 forward thinking in a Woosta, mass in eighty nine, they 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:41.880 actually treated sewage with chemicals. Uh. And this is one 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:45.160 of the first chemical treatments for sewage in America, I think. 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:49.120 And that would cause these solids to clump together and 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:52.720 then settle out like obviously the fecal matter. Uh. And 0:13:52.760 --> 0:13:56.480 that was good because bacteria is more uh more apt 0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:58.960 to cling to the poop than it will to stay 0:13:58.960 --> 0:14:01.000 in the water. So that helped for a little while, 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.600 and then for a long time after that they would 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:08.880 just sort of dilute the water with uh, with clean 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:11.840 water and say, well, it's this is as good as 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:14.880 we can do basically, yeah, which I mean again, that's 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:17.280 kind of what we're doing now. Whi's just the stuff 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:21.560 we're putting out now is way better, um, way less harmful, 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:23.440 and has way more stuff taken out than it did 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:27.160 in the nineteenth century. But that's ultimately, that's what I'm 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:31.520 saying that we're still working mostly on those premises. One 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:36.440 is that you, um, you you allow sedimentation to happen, 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:39.320 which is like putting sewage over a field and letting 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:43.640 the sediment settle, and then um, you use chemical or 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:47.280 biological treatments to filter out stuff that is left over 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:50.360 even after sedimentation. And that's again that's that's where we're 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.080 at today. It's just the techniques were using are much 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:55.760 more advanced. Yeah. And I don't think we even said 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.000 what wastewater is because I think a lot of people 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:01.080 might think that wastewater is just something that goes down 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:04.720 your toilet. Um. But wastewater is any kind of water 0:15:05.400 --> 0:15:09.480 affected by human use at all period. So there's uh, 0:15:09.520 --> 0:15:14.080 there's storm runoff. You know, rainwater is is wastewater. Um. 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:16.440 And you might think like rainwater is beautiful, it falls 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:19.920 from the sky and it's so clean. But this stuff 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.960 is running through cities. It's running, uh and especially in 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:26.400 cities because there's not enough dirt and grass to soak 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:30.000 it all up. So it's it's taking everything on every 0:15:30.280 --> 0:15:34.760 urban city street in America and collecting that and taking 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:41.760 it with it. So fertilizer, pesticides, any kind of agricultural grossness, 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:45.200 road kill, I mean, just think about every disgusting thing 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:48.240 on the ground. And that's what stormwater is. And that's 0:15:48.240 --> 0:15:51.800 why stormwater is treated just like it is, which is wastewater, 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:58.200 whole possums, tons of possums. Guns Apparently what I saw 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:02.920 one wastewater treatment explainer video and apparently a lot of 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:06.200 guns end up getting filtered out in that first big filter. 0:16:06.680 --> 0:16:09.400 Oh my gosh, because I think people like, I don't 0:16:09.400 --> 0:16:11.520 know if they're just murder weapons that people throw down 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:13.960 a sewer drain. I mean I would guess so, or 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:18.000 at least crime weapons. You know, it's kind of scared. Yeah, 0:16:18.240 --> 0:16:21.680 you'd like to think like that happened one time somewhere, 0:16:21.800 --> 0:16:24.800 not like that's a regular occurrence. That's nuts. Well, I mean, 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:26.560 I say a lot of guns. I don't know how 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:29.920 many guns, but it was enough for them to mention 0:16:30.120 --> 0:16:35.840 that guns show up quite often, right. Um, the one 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.440 you were talking about, which is like all that that 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:40.920 wastewater that goes down toilet's the poop and the b 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:45.080 water that's actually called black water. I love that term. Man, 0:16:45.840 --> 0:16:48.560 I'm gonna make some black water. Yeah, that sounds like 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:51.680 a like a hardcore cocktail that would involve Yeager Moister 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:55.040 and the Doodie Brothers. Let's work it out here, So 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:59.960 Yeager Meister okay, um, a little bit of simple surah, 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:06.639 very simple syrup, orange juice, fresh squeeze orange juice. How 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:08.359 would that be with a beta? Be awful with the 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:10.760 ager moister, of course, everything's gonna be off with you, 0:17:10.840 --> 0:17:15.959 ager MOISTERA um and then a little um, freshly muddled basil, 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:20.760 little star and ease. Perhaps that's the black water cocktail. 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:25.840 Oh my god, that's terrible. Gray water is not as 0:17:25.960 --> 0:17:29.280 gross as that by any stretch. This is all the water. 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:32.280 And we've talked about gray water in our eco friendly 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:35.200 episodes because a lot of households will reuse their gray water, 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:39.840 the water that goes down your sink or your shower. Um, 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:43.200 a lot of individual households try to recycle their own 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:46.160 gray water. If you're uh, you know, one of those 0:17:46.200 --> 0:17:49.159 four thinking hippie dippie types. Sure, if you've got a 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:52.639 composting toilet out house in your backyard. Yeah, but generally 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:56.520 there aren't like big cities with huge gray water recycling 0:17:56.560 --> 0:18:00.520 systems yet to predict that in the next many years 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:03.679 we will see those rise pretty pretty commonly. Yeah. I 0:18:03.720 --> 0:18:06.760 hope so I do too. I mean, it's definitely about time, 0:18:06.840 --> 0:18:10.920 like we waste water, like like it's nothing. Yeah, it's 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:13.720 crazy how cheap our water is, especially in the States. 0:18:13.760 --> 0:18:17.280 You know. UM, there's also a couple of other things 0:18:17.800 --> 0:18:21.280 that if you're a waste I think they actually they 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:23.639 don't call them waste water any longer. They call it 0:18:23.760 --> 0:18:27.760 UM water resource reclamation plants, which I really kind of 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:29.800 drives home what we're talking about a little more like 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:31.879 this is this is something you don't want to just 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:35.520 pe away, you know what I'm saying, Like, this is 0:18:35.560 --> 0:18:39.240 important stuff UM, And so they're they're starting to use 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:42.240 like that kind of nomenclature to to indicate how important 0:18:42.280 --> 0:18:44.040 it is. But if you run one of these plants 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.080 where you work at them, UM, a couple of other 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:49.119 things you're gonna be on the lookout for. UM is 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:53.680 the um amount of pollutants that you're you have in 0:18:53.760 --> 0:18:56.800 your your water at any given time, the amount that 0:18:56.840 --> 0:19:00.200 comes through. And then in addition to storm runoff, black water, 0:19:00.240 --> 0:19:03.720 and gray water, you're also on the lookout for industrial affluent. 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:08.240 And we should probably say real quick, um iffluent is 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:12.359 what most people call wastewater all forms going into the 0:19:12.359 --> 0:19:18.439 treatment plant. Yes, not affluent, no, no, UM effluent UH 0:19:18.720 --> 0:19:21.760 is is all wastewater if you're not in the know. 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.360 If you are in the know, Effluent is what a 0:19:25.400 --> 0:19:29.240 water reclamation treatment plant puts out. The treated water is effluent. 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:33.360 The all the untreated stuff that comes in is influent. 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:36.680 That's right. But I think if we say effluent, we're 0:19:36.720 --> 0:19:39.479 probably just gonna be talking about it in general throughout 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:44.359 this episode. Yeah, and you know you mentioned industrial processes. Um, 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.000 we should probably point out to that if you have 0:19:47.040 --> 0:19:51.920 an industrial plant manufacturing something, you probably have your own 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:56.600 uh wastewater treatment system on site. You don't just dump 0:19:56.640 --> 0:19:58.840 all that stuff and say here, county or city deal 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:02.399 with it. You have to clean that stuff first. Just 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:05.840 in that really gross still gross water to the city. 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:10.199 Probably depends on your mayor if he's spineless or she's spineless. 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:16.080 That's true, Mayor Quimby, he wouldn't. He wouldn't let it 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:18.240 happen because he was spineless. He'd let it happen because 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:21.160 he was getting kickbacks for it. Oh man, my favorite. 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:22.600 I don't know even know if I can say this 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:27.320 on the air. Okay, should I? Do? You know the line? 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:29.600 My favorite? No? No, I wait to hear it. We'll 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:31.880 edit it out if you can't. All right, I can't 0:20:31.880 --> 0:20:34.480 remember which episode, but it was when everyone was freaking 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:36.920 out about something and Quinby came up to the podium 0:20:36.960 --> 0:20:40.040 and said, calm down, everyone, I know, well, all we're 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:43.639 all frightened and hawny. Yeah, that's right. I think that 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:47.880 was the comment episode where the comment was headed towards Springfield. 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:52.400 We're all frightened and horny, so funny. And then he 0:20:52.480 --> 0:20:57.040 introduces Professor Frank, and Professor Frank goes a good evening everyone, 0:20:57.040 --> 0:21:01.920 and somebody stands up. He goes quit stalling what he goes, Okay, alright, 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:07.440 sit down. Oh man, I missed that show. I do too. Um, 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:10.600 you want to take a break, Yeah, let's take a 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:35.719 break and we'll talk about how this stuff is treated. Okay. 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:40.080 So we've basically we've talked a lot about wastewater up 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:42.560 to this point, Chuck, and I feel like we should 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:45.720 talk about it some more. Yeah, And uh, let me 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:47.720 point something out too real quick, because Ed said in 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:52.480 here that, um, wastewater treatment plants is not water that 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:56.480 you're going to end up drinking. That is not fully true. Um, 0:21:56.520 --> 0:22:01.280 in in water challenged places in the world. Uh, they 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:03.680 don't like to call it this, but there are treatment 0:22:03.760 --> 0:22:08.320 facilities where they can go toilet to tap um places 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:14.959 like Australia, Singapore, Namibia and then New Mexico, Virginia and California. Uh, 0:22:15.000 --> 0:22:19.680 they convert this stuff back into potable water. And it's 0:22:20.160 --> 0:22:24.119 pretty great actually because they've said, uh, it's shown that 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:28.760 it actually has fewer containments contaminants than existing just like 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:31.240 what you and I are drinking in Atlanta. Let's say, 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:33.480 yeah for sure, because they put it through such a 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:37.320 rigorous process that from what I saw, Singapore actually has 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:41.480 to remix it with rain water so that it'll get 0:22:41.560 --> 0:22:44.800 some of like the local minerals in in tar War 0:22:45.000 --> 0:22:48.520 basically because they strip it. They strip everything out. It's 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:51.480 just like water molecules and that's it from what they 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:53.680 do with it. And the one in Singapore I was 0:22:53.720 --> 0:22:55.600 reading about. Did you read about that one? They seem 0:22:55.640 --> 0:22:58.040 to be like the leaders of the pack with this stuff. 0:22:58.359 --> 0:23:02.359 I think Singapore is especially challenge with water supplies. Yeah. 0:23:02.600 --> 0:23:05.440 So they actually, um, they came up with something called 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:09.800 new water any W water and any W is capitalized. 0:23:09.800 --> 0:23:12.359 It is just a great great little like word and 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:16.120 and spelling and everything. Um. But they also in addition 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:19.280