Natural Wastewater Treatment

Image courtesy of King Tender

Wastewater treatment can be as easy as this simple outlet of a branched drain routing water into the garden

Wastewater can be processed on a home scale through various methods, or on a larger community scale through natural wastewater treatment pond systems.  Natural wastewater treatment is an ecologically sensitive method to treat wastewater; it requires no chemical additives and less energy than centralized municipal wastewater treatment facilities.  Wastewater does not need to be shipped to remote processing plants for treatment because the soil and a well-designed natural treatment system is capable of achieving the same level of purification naturally, while allowing us to reuse the water a second time for irrigation.

We plan to share the techniques and benefits of treating wastewater with this method through our onsite demonstration projects, workshops, and community installations. In much of Belize wastewater goes totally untreated.  Treating wastewater naturally eliminates the need to add chemicals to clean the water and can reduce the amount of water needed to irrigate land by diverting wastewater to plants and trees that will benefit from the nutrient rich wastewater stream. Reusing wastewater produces multiple benefits including: reduced freshwater usage, reduced use of energy and chemicals from pumping and conventional treatment, groundwater recharge, plant growth and reclamation of nutrients. 

Onsite greywater treatment systems allow us to cycle our water through onsite systems a second time, reusing it in the garden to irrigate various fruit trees and other shrubbery through a branched drain system.  The branched drain greywater system directs the flow from the various sources into small mulch filled basins at the base of the trees and shrubbery.  The top several inches of the soil are the most biologically active part of soil, and is excellent at purifying water.  In fact, soil is more powerful at purifying greywater than engineered treatment plants.[1]  Branched drains allow different greywater sources to be directed to flora that will tolerate or even benefit from the nutrient composition of that flow.

We use a type of branched drain greywater system because generally speaking, simple systems such as this are more environmentally benign, require less material to construct and less energy to operate, and outlast more complicated systems.[2]  The branched drain system is one of the simplest greywater treatment systems to install and maintain, is reliable and one of the least expensive greywater treatment options available.

As always, it is important to pay close attention to the kind of soaps we use to ensure biocompatibility.  We make dish, hand, and laundry soaps on site using only biodegradeable ingredients.  Laundry detergents in particular must be carefully made as many commercial products have high sodium concentrations that are not beneficial to plants.  If it isn’t an option for you to make your own soaps, or you are not interested in doing so, there are now many commercial options that are100% biodegradeable.