BACKLUND
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Safe Sanitary Solutions - Clean Water - Human Fertilizer Year 2008 was the United Nation Year for Sanitation Year 2003 was the United Nation Year for Clean Water According to WHO and UNICEF (Year 2000) the coverage with sanitation in urban Africa, Asia and Latin America is 84/78/87 % and only 45/31/49 % in rural areas. In 2002 49 % were without basic sanitation in developing countries. The number of deaths caused by diarrhoea (mostly children under five) because of poor sanitation, hygiene and water supply corresponds to the crash of 20 jumbo jets per day. About 800 million people are starving according to the World Food Programme. 250 million people are directly affected by desertification according to FAO. It has been stated in the resolution from the Earth Summit in Johannesburg 2002 that the number of people without access to sanitation facilities should be cut down to the half before the year 2015. In the wealthy part of the world the situation is much more privileged but processes of reflecting on closing the loop in sanitation, use of nutrients, organic material and energy resources has started as a part of wishes to make society more sustainable. We still use and pollute very big amounts of potable water using it as flush water for toilets. Nutrients and organic material from foodstuff are not in an optimal way recirculated as fertiliser to farming. Sustainable biomass production - as an alternative energy source to fossil energy sources - do not contribute to the increase of carbon dioxide (green house gas) in the atmosphere, but has to be established in a much larger scale. The first steps have been taken and more will follow. Human being excrete most of the nutrients they take in. Human urine only makes out about 1 % of domestic wastewater but contains 80 % of Nitrogen, 60 % of Potassium and 55 % of Phosphorus - and in a very high quality with only 0,06 % of Lead, 0,6 % of Cadmium and with few indicator bacteria's. For closing the loop dilution is a bad solution to pollution. Modern society is characterized by human reflections on human relations and natural processes. Many natural processes as separation, diversion, filtering, composting, anaerobic digestion and evapotranspiration enable reuse of resources instead of disposal of waste. Designing by use of natural processes in Ecological Engineering for Sustainable Solutions implicates not only useful products but of reusable residual products. When a fabric or wood is cut in a factory it is not enough to reflect upon what is cut but as well the options with what is cut off. The process of producing not intended waste must be reflected. Human beings - reflecting organisms automatically separating foodstuff from one inlet, the mouth, into two qualitative and quantitative different fractions, urine and faeces. Human beings in a modern reflecting society every day visit the toilet many times a day. The toilet is often a place for reflections but seldom the object for the reflection. Diversion are well known in industry and households. Very often different materials as glass, paper, metal and residuals from food is diverted. Why do modern reflecting scientists and engineers with two outlets, unlike birds with one outlet, think, produce and use sanitation based on toilets with one inlet? Natural processes are no imperative for reflecting designers in modern society but reflections are! The possibility exists to design according to and taking advantage of the natural body processes. The design of the toilet is decisive for residual waste or resources aiming at disposal or reuse and therefore an element of importance in a sustainability context. Ancient roman aqua ducts - A monument of good long lasting construction but also a monument of bad ecological engineering concerning sustainable water management in a problematic disposal paradigm. The Roman Empire had very good engineers 2000 years ago. Roman aqueducts build to transport drinking water over long distances can still be seen today. If the Roman habitats had protected their local water supply instead of polluting it need of transport of water would have been reduced. Modern sewers and wastewater treatment plants - waste transport in a disposal paradigm with obstacles for implementation of systems and residuals in a reuse paradigm. Water flushing source uniting toilets and sewers were answers of source control to the question of how to improve hygienic conditions and health in towns having problems handling and keeping streams of potable water and human excreta apart. They were solutions, technological answers, to how to dispose and not to the question of how to reuse water, nutrients and organic material with acceptable safety. But the modernization is being modernized and reuse again seems possible but now also in a modernized shape. Diverting toilets - many don't know them and some think they were invented in Sweden in the 1990´s - goes far back in history in many geography's and cultures. In Scandinavia dry diverting toilets were common in urban as well as rural areas for hundred years ago. Source uniting water flushing toilets took over in urban areas whilst dry solutions survived in many rural areas without sewers. In the 1990´s new modernized dry diverting toilets and new constructed diverting water flushing toilets were presented ready to offer an economical and ecological alternative solution to sanitation. BACKLUND has played a role in R & D concerning adjusting existing sanitary systems to demands for sustainability as well as carrying out Research on and developing of diverting sanitation including implementation trying to eliminate systematically obstacles (See PROJECTS, REPORTS and ARTICLES). Energy willows can be irrigated with pre treated wastewater, urine and good quality sludge instead of using potable water and bringing new nutrients in circulation. BACKLUND has participated in R & D projects to investigate benefits and obstacles and is ready to help implementing the systems (See PROJECTS, REPORTS and ARTICLES). Selected Smart Sanitary Systems - Sustainable Ecological Sanitation
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Last modified: 19/05/2012 |
