Toowoomba Water Futures - recycling everything from bricks to puppies ...

Excerpt from the Chronicle:

Whatever fits will be flushed

23 October 2007

Everything from "bricks to puppies" passes through the Toowoomba sewerage system.

This council staffer's quip sent a gasp through the council chamber at City Hall.

While it was conceded the bricks and puppies were toys, the council staffer was anxious about the plastics, especially the sticky labels on apples, clogging up the filters at Wetalla Water Reclamation Facility.

"What sort of plastics?" was Sue Englart's query.

"Don't ask," Michele Alroe warned.

Too late. The matter-of-fact reply, sanitary products and baby nappies, drew grimaces.

So what else comes through the 20.1 megalitres of sewage which passes through Toowoomba each day?

False teeth, rosary beads, jewellery, credit cards and ducks, rubber of course, are often entrapped in the first stage of screening to catch the chunky gross solids.

"Whatever fits down the toilet is going to turn up at Wetalla," director of engineering Kevin Flanagan said.

Cr Englart said: "People need to be educated."

"Ninety-nine per cent of people don't use the sanitary disposal or nappy disposal," Mr Flanagan said.

The deep and meaningful discussion evolved from disappointment that an extra $430,000 was needed to outload dried biosolids.

Also more work was needed by the Alliance partnership to make the Solar Hall biosolids dry more efficiently during winter.

The environmentally friendly project is a $34.7 million investment.

See - What goes down and might come back around.

Interesting.

California has problems with the apple stickers getting through their RO membranes. Those RO membranes that are 'supposed' to stop everything. No, that was the inaccurate Singapore NEWater brochure.

And Mr Flanagan hasn't even mentioned all the pharmaceuticals and other chemicals flushed down the toilet.

Remember "Whatever fits down the toilet is going to turn up at Wetalla".

Perhaps the Council only has themselves to blame.

Councillor Alroe did tell Toowoomba residents to put a brick in the bowl (see - Council Alroe - prankster at heart) ...