Harry Veeder <[email protected]> wrote: Any thoughts how CF technology might affect city sewer services? > This is already being tried, but CF technology should make it even > more cost effective if excrement is processed close to its source
rather than conveyed through a vast system of underground pipes to a > central processing facility. There will be no point in rebuilding > aging sewer systems. > In chapter 13, I discuss an idea proposed by Arthur C. Clarke: "Depolymerization machines may eventually be made fully automatic, and reduced in size until they can be delivered in a single unit that fits on the back of a truck. They might be mass-produced and used for local sewage treatment in small communities. They would be a great boon to Third World villages, where untreated sewage (human and animal waste) is used for fertilizer, and drinking water and rivers are heavily polluted. In the distant future, the plants may be miniaturized until they are as small as an air-conditioning unit or furnace, and they can be installed in the basements of houses and apartment buildings. The toilet, shower, kitchen sink and garbage disposal, and most trash will go down the drain into this box, where the garbage and sewage would be treated immediately and converted into pure water and a small volume of dry harmless organic material, mostly carbon. The solid waste would automatically be packaged in sealed plastic bags that are collected and recycled once a month." By the way, I think the best method of ensuring clean water now is to pass a law saying that people in cities and factories much drink their own waste water. That is to say, when they draw water from a river, they must place the inlet pipe downstream of the outlet. I believe this was first done in the UK. I discussed desalination in the book. Actually, for many cities it would make more sense to simply recycle waste water in a closed loop. - Jed
