Add Category
Supercharged poo-eating algae are being used to speed up waste treatment times in an Australian-first trial in south-east Queensland.
Key points:
- A $5-million trial involving Urban Utilities and the University of Queensland is taking place in Helidon
- It's trialling an algae raceway system to speed up waste treatment times
- Researchers say it has reduced treatment time from 60 days to two weeks
Urban Utilities, which is owned by councils across the state's south-east, is trialling the new technology in the Lockyer Valley town of Helidon, west of Brisbane.
The $5-million trial is in partnership with researchers at the University of Queensland, including Dr Andrew Ward from the Australian Centre for Water and Environmental Biotechnology.
"In Queensland, we've got beautiful weather one day and it's perfect the next, especially for growing algae as we can really utilise that sunlight," Dr Ward said.
How it works
When people flush the toilet in regional towns, it takes about 60 days at most facilities for human waste to be broken down in a lagoon system, according to Urban Utilities.
That system, which also utilised algae, had been the industry standard since the 1970s.
But now a new process for regional areas known as "algae raceways" is being trialled.
"The first [stage] involves starting to break wastewater down using bacteria and that makes it easier for algae to feed on [the waste]," Urban Utilities spokeswoman Anna Hartley said.
"The next step is the wastewater travels into long shallow ponds called algae raceways.
"That's where the algae get to work removing nutrients really quickly and naturally to purify wastewater. So a process that may have taken around two months before can now take two weeks."
Ms Hartley said speeding up the process of treating waste was important because as populations in regional areas grew, so too did the amount of wastewater that needed to be safely treated.
System cheaper
Research is also underway into sustainable wastewater treatment in metropolitan areas with larger populations.
In Brisbane, Urban Utilities is in the middle of a 10-year Australian-first trial involving superbugs that feed on nutrients in sewage water to clean it.
Dr Ward said bigger treatment plants were not practical for regional areas.
"With a small population, you can't put intensive plants in there. It's just too expensive to do it," he said.
"So, we need something that's cost-effective and cheap, so that we're not increasing rates for people.
"With growing population demand [in regional areas] and stricter environmental concerns, this system looks like a good opportunity to move forward."
Poo-powered planes and shoes
Ms Hartley said the new process increased the amount of recycled water available from the plant, which is used to water a nearby koala habitat.
"We're always looking at ways to create sustainable waste resources from the waste that we treat," she said.
"The next steps here, we'll be looking at how we could utilise the algae [after it's used for treatment].
"It is being used increasingly all over the world to create sustainable products like shoes to alternatives to plastic to jet fuel as well."