[Pil-pc-oceania] Human nutrients & Toilets & greywater systems

[Meadows, Joel]

Dear All,

I was impressed with the presentation on Biolitix at the Melbourne convergence and Dean Camoron's work in developing it. I think at its core is a system that can be low-energy, stable and as Graeme says "technology appropriate for a remote village in Bangladesh or Zambia". 

 

Essentially it is a very simple (but clever) biological system with a bit of high tech control gear. I'm sure there are lots of Permies out there like me who have looked at the Biolitix and thought "I could build one of those". 

 

Inside the tank are several layers of non degradable medium (they look like orange onion bags stuffed with similar material) that the water and solids go in to the top of. In the media are worms, beetles and other micro-organisms probably found in a wetish compost heap from a similar climate. These organisms live off the solids in the waste water and because of the size and diversity of space in the tank find their niche in the layers and spaces of the system. The water passes through and solids are physically and biologically filtered and consumed down through the layers of the system. The water that comes out the bottom is nutrient rich, but has almost no sediment as the biological action within the tank has caught and utilised the solids. Dean suggested they can be run without the pump if you set up the system to be gravity fed, and most of the control aspects of the system seem to be there to make them 'acceptable' in a highly regulated Western market and are not essential to its function.

 

The cleaning of the system is a little confusing as it seems that with commercial units only a Biolityx rep can come and clean the system. So unlike dry compost systems where we get valuable solids out, I'm not sure if the same can be said for Biolityx. Dean justified this aspect at the convergence by saying that the matter that was removed was used to seed other Biolityx systems. The systems also needed very rare intervention, and I believe that the majority of the nutrient processed by the system would end up as suspended solids in the liquid, with almost no material getting stuck in the system (as long as you keep un-degradables out).

 

It would be great if the essence of what makes the system work were freely available but this is of course a proprietary secret. Any home-made biolityx systems and not going to be 'approved', and those who are likely to make such systems are unlikely to be able to afford to buy one. We do live in crazy times!

 

Any further thought?

 

Joel Meadows

Inner City Melbourne

Damn Autumn in Melbourne is beautiful!

 
 
 

________________________________

From: pil-pc-oceania-bounces at lists.permacultureinternational.org on behalf of Graeme George - Earthcare Permaculture
Sent: Tue 4/17/2007 9:24 AM
To: permacultue discussion list
Subject: Re: [Pil-pc-oceania] Human nutrients & Toilets & greywater systems


Matthew, Colin and others

The Biolytix system and many other "off the shelf" technologies that have been given regulatory approval fit in with David Holmgren's second scenario for our energy descent future - "Green-Tech Stability". His first scenario is "Techno-Explosion", ie continuation of the current reliance on technology to solve all our problems with unlimited energy and resources, which is of course a fantasy. David's third scenario is "Earth Stewardship" using Permaculture to design a gradual descent into a low-energy future. The fourth is "Atlantis", or total collapse. In David's public presentations on this he emphasises that the Green-tech and Earth stewardship scenarios are likely to run parallel courses for a short period in terms of energy use but must inevitably start to diverge as energy becomes scarcer/more expensive. 

Thus, technologies such as Biolytix, even though they may use permaculture concepts in their design, can only be seen as transitional until truly sustainable systems become acceptable. I suggest that a reasonable test is the question "Is this technology appropriate for a remote village in Bangladesh or Zambia ?" If the answer is no, then I don't see it being part of a sustainable low energy future. I agree that we need to be able to manage our own systems. Sustainable systems for basic services such as waste disposal need to be as self-regulating as possible and/or capable of being managed with minimum skills and training and requiring minimal resources and infrastructure for their establishment. I see most green-tech solutions as being the prerogative of the wealthy. Unfortunately we don't currently have much choice in our over-regulated society, as Colin has pointed out. (David also has a bit to say about getting around bureaucratic impediments!)

For those who haven't heard David speak about these energy descent scenarios, his PP presentation can be viewed as a PDF file on his website (www.holmgren.com.au), under Writings, Permaculture Solutions for the Energy Descent Future.

Regards

Graeme

Graeme George
Earthcare Permaculture
35 Deering Ave, Healesville, Vic, 3777
(03) 5962 5070

Matthew Bond wrote: 

	Hi Colin,
	 
	From what I've seen and heard about Biolytix I'm a great supporter however I must say I was a little suspicious of it when I heard only people from Biolytix could service it if there was a problem and something about an alarm that can be activated which sends a fault report back to Biolytix via the phone line (not too sure about that??)  I think it would be preferable for the owner to learn how to maintain it.  Then again, I don't know how viable it is to train someone to do the maintenance and there may be other issues.  What are you thoughts on this? 
	 
	Matthew.



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