Ever wonder what exactly happens to your waste when you flush your toilet?
Well, we wanted to show you a rough outline of what happens when your “human waste” makes it’s way to the sewage plant.
Any and everything that is flushed is brought into the plant to be screened. This is necessary to remove anything such as toys, rags, dead animals, sticks etc.
The mixture that comes through after all these extra materials are removed is known as, “sludge.” Next they take the sludge and have good bacteria break down and eat away at the sludge. This process takes anywhere from a few hours to a few days.
When this step is completed, the waste is then carried off to what is known as the, “clarifier.” In the clarifier, the solid particles in the mixture attract towards one other and settle to the bottom, separating from what is known as, “wastewater.”
The water is then diverted and the nutrients are easily extracted before the water is released back into the environment.
The remainders of solids head to a machine that then “de-waters” the extra solids. The machine reduces the volume of sludge. In these tanks, there are anaerobic bugs that eat the sludge, producing methane-which is used as energy for the plant.
After this process, the remainder solids have chemicals added to them to help extract even more water. After this, the nutrients are also removed and the remainder of the water is put into the environment!
A giant ring around process but a big one!