Flush to Finish

Warm-Up How do you think clean drinking water gets to your cup? (Write down your best guess)

Video questions you will be answering in your notebook… Is there a difference between where toilet and sink water goes? Is storm water just storm water? Why should you not flush things down the toilet? What do wastewater treatment plants do? At treatment plants, more than ____ % of pollutants are removed. Does drinking water come from the same place wastewater goes? What’s allowed down in the toilet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRaptzcp9G4

Flush to Finish: Check your Answers It all drains to the same place No, because of fertilizers and car cleaning products Because items clog pipes and drains Make water cleaner than when it arrived. At treatment plants, more than 90 % of pollutants are removed. Yes, drinking water comes from what was wastewater #1, #2, and TP (toilet paper), and soap and water

Water pollution is anything that changes the quality conditions of water . That’s why we treat sewage/ wastewater, so that it doesn’t diminish (lower) water quality.

5 Steps of Treating Wastewater

1st: Preliminary Treatment Wastewater arrives at the treatment plant and goes through bar screens that take out large debris (like diapers, leaves, and trash)

Finally, solids are allowed to settle out of the water and the scum to rise. The system then collects the solids for disposal (either in a landfill or an incinerator)

2nd: Primary Treatment The wastewater then flows to settling tanks where the bacteria settle out. Primary treatment might remove 90 percent of all solids and organic materials from the wastewater

3rd: Secondary Treatment This is where the suspended and dissolved materials not taken out by primary treatment are removed. This is where good bacteria eats the organic material and other solids before the water passes through membranes

4th: Disinfection Water passes through Ultraviolet (UV) light, a high energy part of the Electromagnetic (EM) Spectrum, that kills germs, bacteria, and viruses Chlorine added to the water kills any remaining bacteria, and the water is discharged

Chlorination Tank

5th: Advanced Treatment Uses chemicals to remove phosphorous and nitrogen from the water. After this stage the treated water is released back into lakes, rivers, oceans, etc.

Finally: What do we get from treating water? Biosolids, the nutrient-rich organic matter produced by treating wastewater solids, can be used as a fertilizer or a bio-fuel Reclaimed Water – goes back into the water supply (like a lake or river) This water is not clean enough to drink yet, there is another treatment process to make it potable! Energy recovery –biofuels/ biomatter, is a byproduct of the bio-solids, it is collected and used on-site in generators that produce electricity and for powering pumps.