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Environment search New Scientist Go Home News In-Depth Articles Opinion CultureLab Galleries Topic Guides Last Word Subscribe Look for Science Jobs SPACE TECH ENVIRONMENT HEALTH LIFE PHYSICS&MATH SCIENCE IN SOCIETY Cookies & Privacy Book information The Wastewater Gardener: Preserving the planet, one flush at a time by Mark Nelson Published by: Synergetic Press Price: $23.95 Beautiful and edible plants can grow out of excrement (Image: Gonzalo Areila) Would you dine in an artificial wetland laced with human waste? In The Wastewater Gardener, Marc Nelson makes an inspiring case for a new ecology of water RAINFOREST destruction, melting glaciers, acid oceans, the fate of polar bears, whales and pandas. You can understand why we get worked up about them ecologically. But wastewater? The problem is excrement. Psychologically, we seem to be deeply averse to the stuff and want to avoid contact whenever possible – we don't even want to think about it, we just want it out of the way. The solution, a universal pipe-based waste network, works well until domestic and industrial chemicals and other non-biological waste are mixed in. Treating the resulting toxic soup, as Mark Nelson Tweet Tweet 52 14 29 More Latest news ADVERTISEMENT WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT avengwater.co.za Acid Mine Water Treatment Plants, Design, Install & Maintain.Call Now Pope to make moral case for action on climate change 20:30 14 January 2015 Catholics worldwide will hear Pope Francis's message – expected to plead for a climate deal that will protect the planet's three billion poorest Poisoning Tibet's rabbit relatives may be a bad move 16:54 14 January 2015 The Chinese government is poisoning pikas for wrecking the ecosystem, but they could be essential to the survival of the Tibetan fox and for regulating rivers Keystone XL pipeline inches closer – but may yet fail 14:58 14 January 2015 The controversial oil pipeline from Canada to Texas wins approval in the This week's issue Subscribe 17 January 2015 ADVERTISEMENT Cookies on the New Scientist website close Our website uses cookies, which are small text files that are widely used in order to make websites work more effectively. To continue using our website and consent to the use of cookies, click away from this box or click 'Close' Find out about our cookies and how to change them WASTEWATER TREATMENT PLANT Acid Mine Water Treatment Plants, Design, Install & Maintain.Call Now SUBSCRIBE & SAVE 37% MANAGE MY ACCOUNT » GIVE A GIFT » SLUDGE TREATMENT Filter, bridges, classi!ers We protect the environment Home | Environment A globetrotting, water-saving tour of sewage gardens 04 August 2014 by Adrian Barnett Magazine issue 2980. Subscribe and save For similar stories, visit the Books and Art Topic Guide Dating 104 Like Like S S S Log in My New Scientist S S S A globetrotting, water-saving tour of sewage gardens - envir... http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22329800.700-a-glob... 1 of 3 1/15/15 5:01 PM
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Book informationThe Wastewater Gardener: Preserving the planet, one flush at a time byMark NelsonPublished by: Synergetic PressPrice: $23.95
Beautiful and edible plants can grow out of excrement (Image: Gonzalo Areila)
Would you dine in an artificial wetland laced with human waste? In TheWastewater Gardener, Marc Nelson makes an inspiring case for a new ecologyof water
RAINFOREST destruction, melting glaciers, acid oceans, the fate of polarbears, whales and pandas. You can understand why we get worked up aboutthem ecologically. But wastewater?
The problem is excrement. Psychologically,we seem to be deeply averse to the stuffand want to avoid contact wheneverpossible – we don't even want to thinkabout it, we just want it out of the way.
The solution, a universal pipe-based wastenetwork, works well until domestic andindustrial chemicals and othernon-biological waste are mixed in. Treatingthe resulting toxic soup, as Mark Nelson
TweetTweet 52 14
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Design, Install & Maintain.Call Now
Pope to make moral case for action onclimate change
20:30 14 January 2015Catholics worldwide willhear Pope Francis'smessage – expected toplead for a climate deal that
will protect the planet's three billion poorest
Poisoning Tibet's rabbit relatives maybe a bad move
16:54 14 January 2015The Chinese government ispoisoning pikas forwrecking the ecosystem,but they could be essential
to the survival of the Tibetan fox and forregulating rivers
Keystone XL pipeline inches closer –but may yet fail
14:58 14 January 2015The controversial oilpipeline from Canada toTexas wins approval in the
This week's issueSubscribe
17 January 2015
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Filter, bridges, classi!ers We protect the environment
Home | Environment
A globetrotting, water-saving tour of sewage gardens
04 August 2014 by Adrian BarnettMagazine issue 2980. Subscribe and saveFor similar stories, visit the Books and Art Topic Guide
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explains in The Wastewater Gardener, is notonly a major technological challenge, but also uses enormous amounts of oneof the planet's most limited resources: fresh water.
Each adult produces between 200 and 500 grams of faeces per day. With ourcurrent population, that's a yearly 500 million tonnes. Centralised sewagesystems use between 1000 and 2000 tonnes of water to move each tonne offaeces, and another 6000 to 8000 tonnes to process it.
Even then, this processed waste often ends up in waterways, affecting wildlifeand communities downstream, and it eventually finds its way to the ocean.There it contributes to the process of eutrophication, which creates deadzones, killing coral reefs and other sea creatures.
But it doesn't have to be like that. As head of Wastewater GardensInternational, Nelson has travelled the world, developing and promotingartificial wetlands as the most logical way to use what we otherwise flush away.
Except that, as Nelson points out, with 7 billion-plus people, there really is no"away". Besides, what the public purse pays to detox and dump can be put toprofitable work, fertilising greenery for urban spaces and fruits and vegetablesfor domestic and commercial use, for example.
Less than 3 per cent of Earth's water is fresh, and only a tiny portion of that iseasily available to us. Most of the water that standard sewage systems use tomove human waste is drinkable. Diminishing water resources meanalternatives are pressingly needed. Wastewater gardens, where marsh plantsare used to filter lavatory output and allow cleaned water to enter naturalwatercourses, are very much part of that solution.
Nelson clearly understands the yuck factor and goes to great lengths to showthat having a shallow vat of human-waste-laced water nearby is far less vilethan we might imagine, especially when it is covered by gravel and interlacedwith plant roots. Restaurants with tables dotted between ponds containing theever-filtering artificial wetlands provide convincing proof.
Constructed wetlands can take on big jobs, too: a mixture of papyrus, lotus andother plants have successfully and beautifully detoxified water from Indonesianbatik-dying factories. This water had killed cows downstream and causedrunning battles between farmers and factory workers.
The Wastewater Gardener is not a "how to" story, but more a "how it was done"account. Nelson tells how these wetlands started to become mainstream inless than 30 years. With humility and humour, he recounts how, as a boy fromNew York City, he acquired hands-on ranching knowledge in New Mexico, thenstudied under American ecology guru, Howard Thomas Odum.
And stories of his experiences everywhere from urban Bali and the Australianoutback to Morocco's Atlas mountains and Mexico's Cancún coast illustrate thegravelly, muddy evolution of his big idea. An inspiring read, not just for thesmallest room.
This article appeared in print under the headline "Excellent excrement"
Adrian Barnett is a rainforest ecologist at Brazil's National Institute ofAmazonian Research in Manaus
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