Innovative Wastewater Treatment Solution For Developing Countries
Throughout many developing nations, wastewater treatment is only an afterthought. This leaves billions of people exposed to disease and harms local ecosystems. In these poorer countries the government cannot or aren’t willing to foot the bill for modern centralized wastewater treatment facilities like we have here in the US. When a toilet flushes in India, it is often dumped out into a local canal or waterway that is never actually treated and decontaminated.
This is why Kohler partnered with Cal Tech and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to come up with a decentralized system that can be used to treat wastewater locally. Their solution is called CLASS. The Closed Loop Advanced Sanitation System is a stand alone wastewater treatment system in a box. It is designed to treat wastewater for 20-25 people and can be hooked up to an apartment complex.
It works through a process called electrolysis. “Water goes into an electrolysis cell, which breaks down the waste products in the water into compounds that off-gas, such as nitrogen and carbon dioxide. Some of the chlorides that are naturally present in urine break down, become chlorine gas, and dissolve, disinfecting any bacteria that may still be in the water.” Basically, it uses electricity to break down the solids in the wastewater and sterilize it at the same time.
The system is not without it’s flaws. Things other than human waste and TP have a tendency of getting flushed into the system. This causes clogging and the CLASS is unable to break down the waste. Also heavy minerals present in the local water source caused clogs in the treatment tank. These mechanical problems are being addressed in future iterations of the system. However, the biggest problem that CLASS faces is not mechanical, it’s financial. In order for a technology like this to scale and make a meaningful difference in third world countries, it needs to be economically viable. Right now the tech is in its infancy and is still very expensive. The biggest factor in global adoption of a system like this is that someone needs to be able to make money off of it. Donations are great, but they can only get you so far.