The article is about a new filtering system designed by researchers out of Penn State. They have begun testing a new filter that uses wetlands plants to filter waste water that travels down a vertical pipe. As the water filters through the plant roots it is also passed through alternating layers of porous rock, tire crumbs, crushed limestone, potting soil, and peat moss. This system is extremely efficient. It removed 90% of the wastes from washing machine wastewater in 3 days.
This new system would do wonders for our current filtrations systems. It is living, so almost all wastes are recycled in some way, and with statistics showing it's efficiency and it's removal rate, it sounds very promising. The system itself is also very cheap. This means that it could be installed in many different facilities. This would allow different areas to reduce their purification costs to allow for more focused spending on the really needed things. Although some people might be worried that the system's plants are not native need not worry. The used plants remain in the filter pipes for their "lives". Overall, the system seems t be almost perfect. Some issues might involve the removal of major synthetic chemicals are thier effects on the plants. Tests so far have shown the plants(papyrus and horsetail reed were the test plants) able to remove most of the chemicals and harmful bacteria from the waste water.
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I agree with James about this new system. It sounds very interesting and could be quite helpful, but I would want to know how efficient most current systems are first before replacing them with these.
ReplyDeleteThis seems like another great system to me. The plants can't hurt native populations and it sounds like a great filter. The only problem I could see though is that after enough waste water has been poured through the system some of the soils will be washed away. The plants and moss will stay but without the soil it will be less effective. Although i still believe anything will help and this system is better than nothing.
ReplyDeleteThis system seems promising, and like a creative solution to the problem of waste water treatment. However, it is basically like creating artificial wetlands to clean water. I don't see anything wrong with that, but it is interesting that a "creative" answer is essentially recreating a natural system. This shows to me the ever-present need to protect wetlands, because they are fragile areas teeming with biodiversity and because of the extensive (free) ecosystem services they provide for us. One thing that greatly concerns me about the environment today is the loss of wetlands - the BP spill could devastate the wetlands in that area, losing all of these wonderful ecosystem services that we attain from wetlands.
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