Why Care About Water? Managing Wastewater Better

Why Care About Water? Managing Wastewater Better

On planet Earth, water is an essential resource. We drink it. We cook and clean with it. We hydrate our plants with it, generate energy with it, and cool banks of computers with it. We also use water to wash away human-generated waste of all kinds – from our own discard and excrement to waste created during manufacturing, irrigation, and other processes.

“Fundamentally, wastewater is water that has been contaminated in one way or another,” says Geoff Salthouse, research and development manager at Orenco Systems, a leading manufacturer of on-site wastewater treatment systems. “It’s considered waste, but it’s only wastewater if we waste it. Water itself is a vehicle for transporting material from one place to another. It becomes polluted during that process, but it is virtually 100% reclaimable.”

Thanks to science and cutting-edge engineers like Salthouse, we’re discovering ways to divert and reclaim the water in that wastewater.

“While the amount of water available to us globally hasn’t really changed, the value of that water has increased,” Salthouse says. “And over time, we’ve learned a lot about how to manage the wastewater, and how to transport, collect, and treat it.”

Salthouse specializes in creating engineered wastewater systems that mimic natural processes. He’s not alone in his efforts.

“A growing number of design companies, architects, and innovative engineers are looking at all the water that falls or is used in a site as part of one big system, not separated systems,” Salthouse says.

“Using an engineered version of a natural system is one way that innovation is catching on as far as sustainability because we want to keep the energy use as low as possible to get the outcome that we want, which is to reclaim the water,” he says.

Another innovation: treating the wastewater at the source rather than sending it away to a centralized facility, Salthouse says.

“Decentralize the process and keep the water closer to where it became contaminated in the first place,” he says. “It’s the idea of keeping it simple, but also making sure we have resource recovery, keeping nutrients like phosphorus available as a resource that otherwise would have been part of the waste.”

That’s where Salthouse sees the industry heading – to closed-loop systems, environment protection, resource recovery, and a healthier planet.

“The ideal future scenario would be something that is more closed loop with an emphasis on environmental protection, human health, and health of the planet,” he says. “Stop looking at it the way we did 100 or 200 years ago. We have new technology, we have more experience, and a better understanding of nature and the processes that we can use.

“Think of it as part of a system that should be designed for the maximum benefit, not just to make something go away,” Salthouse says.

So, why should we care about water and wastewater?

Sewage treatment plants and faulty septic systems release millions of gallons of untreated wastewater into our waterways every year. If that wastewater were treated and its valuable components – like methane, biofuels, phosphorus, nitrogen, and non-potable water – harvested and reused, the planet and its people, present age and future, would benefit.

“If we’re going to use it, like any other resource that’s available to us, we have to be doing that respectfully in a way that it is looking forward to how the future generations are going to need to use it as well,” Salthouse says.

“Our challenge is that we have to figure out how to manage it so that everyone dispersed around the globe has access to what they need and we’re not wasting it,” he continues. “The more you know about how amazing water is, the more you realize that it is something that deserves our respect.”

If you’re interested in learning more, listen to the entire “Make It Clear: Why Care About Water” episode on your favorite podcast host. You can also visit Orenco.com/resources/podcasts to discover a wealth of resources on wastewater treatment systems and case studies about them.