By Will Brooks and Daniel Schlenker

This is a biological wastewater system that mimics the cleaning functions of wetlands. The goal is to provide a cleaner, more sustainable way of treating wastewater.

The system can produce fish, and edible and ornamental plants as byproducts Produces biomass rather than sludge The system is easily adaptable to filter out different primary pollutants.

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 The living Machine system was developed by John Todd, a biologist.  Developed in the mid 1970’s

John Todd has re-organized natural resources to transform water from dirty to clean. In his most basic design, waste-water moves through a minimum of three different ecological systems that process and filter it in different ways. Each ecological system is different from the others so that it can treat waste-water based on its own needs, after which the water moves to the next community.

How it Works Cont.  Organisms from protozoa to shrubs and trees are grown on racks suspended within the tanks.

 His new technology uses bacteria, fungi, plants, snails, fish, and clams that do well by breaking up pollutants. These organisms soak up the nutrients they need from the pollutants and breakdown all the rest. 

 This type of cleaning is referred to as the living machine because the waste is broken down by all living organic matter but it breaks it down so well that it acts almost like a machine.

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 The main obstacle that stops the creation of these living machines is the fact that it takes so much time for all the waste water to be cleaned and purified and the remaining waste water to be broken down.

 Different species may have advantages over other species due to the fact that the wastewater treatment makes better ecosystems for different species that may not thrive as much in the wild.

 Due to the living,machine being separate from nature it may give way to some alien species being able to thrive where they would not normally thrive in nature.

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