November 13, 1975
Page 36427
ALTERNATIVE METHODS OF SEWAGE DISPOSAL
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, the American taxpayers spend billions of dollars each year to build and operate wastewater treatment plants to purify the millions of gallons of public drinking water mixed with domestic wastes and dumped daily into our municipal sewage systems. We concentrate on how to deal with these wastes once they enter the system, and how to transport them all to one location — but we do not concentrate on ways to eliminate the problem in the first place.
Many counties around the country have been forced to impose bans on new sewer hookups because of overloaded sewage treatment facilities. At the same time, new technologies have been developed to provide for the handling of ordinary domestic wastes without requiring the use of a municipal sewer system, and thousands of gallons of water. These systems not only avoid overuse of sewage treatment facilities but they also avoid costly collection and transportation costs. Most importantly, many of these new technologies treat or compost domestic wastes to render them suitable for recycling as fertilizers or other beneficial uses.
None of these new technologies is revolutionary in its concept, and in most cases they can be adopted without causing disruption in the ordinary daily habits of the average American home.
Mr. President, the November issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists features an excellent article by Harold H. Leich entitled "The Sewerless Society." This article discussed the types of sewerless domestic waste systems currently available. It is an enlightening and interesting piece, on a subject that has been ignored for too long.
The article's opening sentence makes a telling point—
To a visitor from another planet it would seem incredible that human beings who are intelligent enough for space travel solve their problems of personal hygiene by putting their body wastes into the public drinking water and then spend billions in futile efforts to restore the water to its original condition.
Perhaps the more encouraging part of this article is the fact that these systems are making some headway towards moving us away from the traditional sewage treatment syndrome. Essentially, our technology for waste treatment has not changed in 60 years. I am finally beginning to sense a growing search for new solutions, solutions that we tried to spur with the 1972 Clean Water Act, and that we hope to continue encouraging. Domestic wastes can be handled on an individual unit basis and successfully reused — to the overall benefit of the environment.
The small town of Greenville, Maine, located on the majestic and pristine Moosehead Lake is now experiencing serious problems because of a lack of technological options. Because of sewage problems, caused primarily by vacationers, they built a conventional sewage treatment system, with collection and primary, secondary and tertiary treatment, ultimately discharging through an outfall into the lake. If the costs had not been fully borne by the State and Federal Governments, the costs would have been $1,250 per person, or $5,000 per household.
Now, with the system fully installed and paid for, other residents around the lake are questioning the system — they claim that, even after all that treatment, it is going to pollute the lake, and the town is stuck. Nobody ever gave them any alternatives, nobody tried to show them a different way to do this. The EPA, the State, and the consulting engineers all pointed them in this direction even though there are now serious questions. We cannot turn the clock back; we cannot stop our momentum in cleaning up our rivers and lakes; we must get the best use out of the systems we have already built; but we can and must start looking ahead and improve our technology, even if that means simplifying it.
I would like EPA, the States, the cities and towns, and the consulting engineers to begin to focus on the alternatives mentioned in this article and another article from the November 3, 1975 issue of Newsweek, which also describes some sewerless toilets.
I ask unanimous consent that each of the articles be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the articles were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
THE SEWERLESS SOCIETY
(By Harold H. Leich)
(NOTE.—Harold H. Leich is a white-water canoeist and a free lance writer on conservation subjects since his retirement in 1972 as Chief of the Policy Development Division of the U.S. Civil Service Commission. He was chairman of a water protection workshop at the 1972 U.N. Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm. This article is based in part on a paper he presented to the National Home Sewage Disposal Symposium during the 1974 conference of the American Society of Agricultural Engineers.)
To a visitor from another planet it would seem incredible that human beings who are intelligent enough for space travel solve their problems of personal hygiene by putting their body wastes into the public drinking water and then spend billions in futile efforts to restore the water to its original condition. It is scientifically possible but financially infeasible to restore water completely once it has been contaminated by body wastes.
The flush toilet, long considered the very symbol of modern sanitation and progress, wastes about 40 percent of all water piped into the home and befouls waterways from the muddy Potomac to the blue Mediterranean. Despite the money and energy spent on sewage treatment, traditional disposal methods are at a dead end — more sewers for more people, more billions for more treatment plants, more refined methods of intensive treatment, and still the effluent damages water quality downstream. Adverse effects of present sewage disposal systems include the following:
Risk of transmitting diseases to water users downstream. Chlorination effectively kills bacteria in the drinking water but there is less certainty about killing viruses, which cause diseases such as polio and infectious hepatitis and are suspected as one cause of cancer.Recent findings in the Mississippi River basin indicate that chlorination to kill bacteria from toilets upstream may itself create carcinogenic substances in the drinking water.
Waste of large quantities of purified drinking water to carry away small quantities of body wastes. The average toilet flush uses about five gallons of water. In one year the typical user of a flush toilet contaminates 13,000 gallons of fresh water to carry away 165 gallons of body wastes.
Enormous expenditures for sewer lines and treatment plants. A recent estimate states that complete sewage treatment for one small river basin — the Potomac — will cost $1.4 billion in addition to the substantial sums already invested in recent decades. But even this huge expenditure will not make the river swimmable. (In 1965 President Johnson, in signing a water quality bill, pledged to reopen the Potomac for swimming by 1975.)
Accelerated eutrophication of lakes and estuaries. Even advanced treatment does not completely remove the dissolved unwanted nutrients from the effluent.
Leakage of raw sewage. Aging sewer lines can allow leakage into the ground water supply or into surface waters. The reverse, ground water leaking into sewer lines, can also happen.
Build-up of large amounts of sewage sludge. The sewage sludge produced at the Blue Plains Plant serving the Washington, D.C. area, for example, is expected to reach 2,400 tons a day when fully operational. Rural residents do not look with favor on receiving the growing waste load
In an effort to overcome environmental problems caused by the flush toilet, sanitation authorities have developed excessively centralized systems — the collection of human wastes from hundreds of thousands and even millions of people into one place for disposal. Such centralized systems are vulnerable to power failures, equipment breakdowns, employee strikes, and by-passing during flooding or high water — all of which can send millions of gallons of raw sewage downstream.
The present situation is bad enough, but what of the future? In 1970 the Council on Environmental Quality estimated that municipal sewage loads would nearly quadruple within 50 years. The Environmental Protection Agency received estimates in 1973 from municipalities for more than $60 billion to build sewage treatment facilities by 1990, but cautioned that the estimates might include inflated costs because 75 percent of the amount would come from Federal funds. Winfield M. Kelly, Jr., of Prince Georges County, Md., stated that 1985 sewage-flow estimates for a huge proposed regional treatment plant for that county exceeded the available water supplies for the area by 321 million gallons a day.
Thus it is increasingly apparent that sanitary engineers and public health officials took the wrong turn in the road in the nineteenth century when they encouraged widespread adoption of the flush toilet. The tens of billions now programmed in this country for sewage disposal merely take us further down the same road. Sanitation authorities should also take a hard look at the kitchen garbage grinder, which puts a heavy load of organic wastes into the public water supply. Now is the time to stop this new threat to our rivers, lakes, and oceans.
The solution to these water-supply and sanitation problems seems elementary: (1) body wastes should not be put into the public water supply, and (2) sewage disposal systems should be decentralized with wastes disposed of in the individual house, apartment building, or factory.
Before the days of modern plumbing, societies had systems for recycling body wastes back to the land — crude, perhaps, but more ecologically sound for the long run than flushing them into the water supply of the next town downstream.
A quiet revolution in sewage disposal is fortunately now taking place in Sweden and the United States. New methods promise to solve the sewage problem by disposing of wastes on or near the site without the use of large quantities of water. They offer us the chance to decentralize human sanitation without going back to the evils of the out-house. If widely adopted they would drastically cut down water consumption and could eventually eliminate costly sanitary sewers and treatment plants.
Waterless toilets were developed several decades ago for owners of homes where water and sewer connections were not available. Because it is now forbidden by law to discharge body wastes into harbors and other confined waters there is a need for sewage disposal systems aboard inland and ocean-going vessels, and several large companies are now investing millions in this field. It is only a step to adapt this new marine technology for use in year-round dwellings and high-rise buildings ashore.
There are at least seven different types of sewerless toilets or sewage disposal systems on the market or under development at this time. (The author has not personally tested any of these systems.)
INCINERATING TOILETS
Several Swedish and U.S. companies make individual incinerating toilets, fired by oil, electricity, or piped or bottled gas. They quickly reduce body wastes to a sterile ash. Prices range from $400 to $600 a unit. Tens of thousands have already been installed in vacation homes, houseboats, and other places where a sewer connection is not possible, such as the watch tower of a penitentiary, forest lookout towers, a high hut on the Matterhorn, and a basement recreation room where the sewer line is above floor level. But these devices are not just being installed in vacation houses or at unusual sites, an increasing number are being installed in year-round houses, especially in Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. Incinerating toilets have also been selected to serve crews building the Alaska pipeline, so body wastes will be disposed of under extremely cold conditions.
These devices consume considerable amounts of energy but completely solve the water pollution problem. Inevitably though there is some release of gases and odor to the air. One manufacturer, however, is working on a new unit that will discharge nothing but carbon dioxide and water vapor to the air.
COMPOSTING TOILETS
A Swedish inventor, Rikard Lindstrom, has developed a composting toilet that uses no energy or water and depends on the mild heat of composting to drive off the water content in the wastes.
A large fiberglass container about nine feet long with a slanting bottom is installed in the basement, and two vertical chutes lead down from the floor above, one for the toilet and one for kitchen garbage. When the unit is installed a layer of peat moss, grass clippings, and soil is placed along the bottom to begin the composting process. Pathogenic organisms in the wastes are slowly consumed by aerobic bacteria in the compost. A natural draft system ventilates the wastes, keeps the process aerobic rather than septic, and carries away any odors through a vent pipe rising above the house roof. When the lid to the toilet or garbage chute is raised, air moves down into the basement container and thus odors do not come into the house.
The container and its contents need no attention during the first two years; then the dried compost, which has slowly worked its way down the slanting bottom, is ready for the garden or other disposal. It measures only about five percent by volume of the waste materials deposited many months before. Tests by Swedish health authorities have shown it to be free of pathogenic organisms.
More than a thousand of these units have been installed in Scandinavia, mostly in vacation homes, and recently a U.S. company obtained rights to make and sell the units in this country.
The price ranges around $950 to $1,300, depending on size of the container; mass production may bring the price down, however.
The Clivus-Multrum company in Sweden is working to adapt the system to apartment houses, by means of lateral pipes enclosing electrically operated screw-augers which will move the wastes to a central container for composting.
Other competing manufacturers in Scandinavia and the United States are beginning to make composting toilets. These use smaller containers in the base of the commode itself rather than in the basement and, therefore, need electrical heating and ventilating systems to maintain the composting process. Prices run from about $300 to $700 each.
BIOLOGICAL TOILETS
One U.S. manufacturer makes a recycling toilet which is based on biological principles of waste digestion: body wastes and toilet tissues are turned into water by the action of enzymes and bacteria, both aerobic and anaerobic. Flushing after each use is done by a hand pump. The company states that the resultant effluent, about one quart a week for each user, is clear, odorless water containing no pathogenic organisms. It is readily disposed of in a small drain field or dry well beside the house. No sludge removal is needed; the only maintenance is the weekly addition of a freeze-dried package of enzymes and bacteria, at a cost of 25 cents, and a renewal of the charcoal filters once every two years.
The toilets come in a variety of forms for use in mobile homes, boats, vacation houses, and construction sites. Many are installed deep in coal mines. The company states that they are readily adaptable for high-rise buildings. Prices are in the $300 to $400 range; one model is now listed in the current Sears Roebuck catalog. More than 4,000 are in use and production is running at 1,000 a month.
Ordinarily no water, electrical, or sewer connections are needed; but if the unit is to operate in temperatures below 50º F, an electrical heating element is added to allow the biological action to continue.
Montgomery County, Maryland, is trying out 18 of these units in "Project Inside," to replace outdoor privies in rural homes under a grant from the National Water Demonstration Project. In July 1975 a similar project in Fairfax County, Va., with 16 units in rural homes was reportedly failing because of complaints from some of the users about odors. The manufacturer believes the problem was caused by the use of chlorine-based cleansers in the commode.
An Irish company, Biodynamics Ltd., makes a biological toilet which apparently operates on principles similar to the one de-scribed above.
OIL-FLUSHED TOILETS
A large U.S. company, Chrysler Corp., has developed a closed-loop toilet system that uses a white, low-viscosity mineral oil as the flushing medium. Wastes from the commodes are carried by the flushing oil to a gravity separation tank where the oil floats to the top and the water- saturated wastes sink to the bottom. The oil is drawn off from the top through a series of filters and is then recirculated to the commodes. It remains clear and odorless indefinitely and bacteria are controlled to nearly zero. Wastes are periodically drained from the bottom of the tank and incinerated to a sterile ash or they can be held for other disposal: removal to a municipal treatment plant or aerobic digestion and drying. One advantage of the system is that it can be installed in existing toilets.
This system has U.S. Coast Guard approval and many marine installations have already been made; for example, a tug boat in New York harbor, a Corps of Engineers snag boat, and a service vessel with a crew of 20 working with oil rigs in the North Sea. Land installations have often been made at parks and campgrounds, and the system can be used for high-rise buildings. The toilets are also installed at a naval barracks in Annapolis and at two Army posts.
A Japanese company, Sumitomo Shoji Kaisha Ltd., has recently been licensed to manufacture the equipment in Japan for the residential, commercial, and marine markets.
Another U.S. company, Monogram Sanitation Products, is marketing an oil-flushed system that has been tested and accepted for use in visitor centers in many national parks and forests. It is also well adapted for single-family homes, where a 400-gallon holding tank has the capacity to store the contents of 6,000 toilet flushes (or 4.1 flushes per day per person) , which is a capacity sufficient for one year for a family of four. When filled the tank is pumped into a truck for disposal. A professor of architecture has suggested to the company that it develop a home methane generator to utilize the wastes. Unusual site installations include a four-fixture toilet 500 feet down in a Kansas salt mine and rest-room facilities on an island in a water reservoir in California. The equipment is being installed in a new community surrounding a lake in Connecticut.
HOUSEHOLD COLLECTION SYSTEMS
The adoption of waterless indoor toilets with the wastes going directly into canisters has been suggested. Twice a week the canisters would be tightly sealed and placed outside for collection by municipal workers. In one case the canisters would go to a bio-gas plant nearby, where the wastes would be used for generating methane gas and the spent material would be spread as a fertilizer. In the other case the canisters would be made of biodegradable material so they could be buried in farmland, where the wastes would serve as a deep fertilizer. Odors in the house would be controlled by spreading powder or dirt over each deposit . These suggested systems are not in operation and are cruder than the others listed here, but they are cheaper to install and may find a place in rural areas.
The concept of a waterless indoor toilet is not new; it goes back to the "earth closet" used in Britain before the "water closet" or flush toilet took over. In 1872 a British author, William Eassie, penned what he called a "Hymn of Praise to Mother Earth":
The advantages claimed for the earth system are many, and amongst others the following: that it leaves unpolluted the natural springs and watercourses; that it allows the rainfall to be collected in a pure state; that it is a great saving of water, and, unlike the water closet, is independent of winter frosts; that it is inexpensive and not apt to get out of order; that it dispenses with underground drainage, or considerably narrows it down, and robs it of its dangers; that it generates no smell; that it is an auxiliary to health, or rather a prevention of zymotic disease; and that it is a source of profit to the patron, either in money or in increased farm or garden crop.
VACUUM SYSTEMS
Several Swedish and American companies make toilet systems that use the vacuum principle to transport body wastes from the toilet bowl to a collection tank for disposal.
An electric pump maintains a vacuum in the line. More than 20,000 of such toilets are now in use throughout the world. The system uses only a liter of water per flush, since differential air pressure moves the wastes through the line. The system can be adapted to a variety of needs from single-family houses to apartments, factories or whole new towns. In addition to greatly reducing water consumption, the system uses pipes that are much smaller than in traditional systems and they can run uphill where necessary. Ultimate disposal of wastes from a vacuum system can be through on-site incineration, removal to a rural area for use as fertilizer, or piping to a municipal treatment plant.
The system is well adapted to marine use, and several U.S. and Canadian destroyers have been so fitted. The new Delta Queen, a steam powered excursion boat on the Mississippi, uses 320 vacuum toilets, and an island development off the west coast of Florida will have the toilets installed in 60 new houses. A classroom building at the University of Michigan will use 80 vacuum toilets. The system is often placed in mobile units that can be moved temporarily to camp grounds or athletic events.
AEROBIC TANKS
The problems of septic tanks are well known. Recently a number of U.S. companies have marketed disposal systems that depend on aerobic rather than anaerobic action to digest waste materials in the tanks and drain fields. They differ in cost and design but have in common the use of small electric pumps that periodically mix air into the tanks to break up solids and speed up digestion of the wastes. In contrast to a septic tank, the aerobic action does not generate foul orders, and the effluent going into the tile drain field carries a charge of dissolved oxygen which helps to prevent clogging of the field. Some manufacturers claim that their systems do not build up a load of sludge that would require periodic removal as with a septic tank. Others claim merely that the cycle for pumping out sludge is greatly lengthened as compared with a septic tank.
The Maryland Environmental Health Administration concluded in 1974 a two-year trial of aerobic systems from six manufacturers in suburban homes in Oakland in the Alleghenies. This area was chosen in order to give the units a severe test because of the cold climate, heavy rainfall, low winter temperatures, and heavy clay soil. The units were installed at homes where septic tanks had failed. The test was considered to be successful, although one unit failed to meet standards. The Health Administration has recommended a number of aerobic systems to county health departments, which have final approval authority.
Some public health authorities look with skepticism on the new aerobic systems because they require a greater degree of care by the householders than do septic tanks. One answer to this problem is to set up a public maintenance service with costs charged to the householder.
True enough such aerobic systems use as much water going through the flush toilets as do traditional methods and thus cannot match the water-saving benefits of the six preceding categories. But one manufacturer, Multi-Flow, Inc., has developed an aerobic tank system which filters the effluent to the point where it can be safely recycled back to the flush toilets, with consequent water saving in the home.
Another cure for failing septic systems has been introduced by another U.S. company — LLMD, Micro-bio Product Company, 632 N.Washington St., Alexandria, Va. 22314. This involves biological rather than electromechanical action. For many years efforts have been made to grow bacterial cultures that could be placed into septic tanks to stimulate the digestion of body wastes. These efforts often failed because the bacteria died during transportation from the producer to the home. A new biological discovery keeps the bacteria alive but in a dormant state for an indefinite period. Then when they are placed into a septic tank, sewage lagoon, or other waste receptacle, the bacteria become active and feed on the wastes. Each gallon of liquid supplied by the company is said to contain about 50 billion microorganisms, both aerobic and anaerobic. By their action in attacking body wastes and grease, they accelerate the digestion process and eliminate foul odors. After they are initially established in a waste receptacle, additional quantities are added periodically to maintain the biological action.
One advantage of vacuum toilets and aerobic or septic tanks over the other categories described above is that they can be designed to dispose of all wastewater from the home or larger building: 'black water' from the toilets and 'gray water' from basins, sinks, baths, and washing machines. But if black water can be safely disposed of by the five other systems above, then it should be a fairly simple matter to develop home filtration devices to cleanse the gray water since such drainage does not carry a heavy load of pathogenic organisms. After filtration the water could be used for non-drinking purposes such as watering lawns and washing cars, with further reduction of domestic water use. Any excess could be led away to storm drains or streams with no ecological damage. One company is devoting a major research effort to the development of such a home filtration system.
New non-polluting technology is thus solving the problems of sewage disposal and promises to eliminate the need for expensive sanitary sewers and treatment plants. It may be that not one of the systems described above will be the best answer. But on the other hand perhaps each one of these systems will find a niche in the sewerless society of the future, or perhaps some wholly new idea will sweep the field. What is highly encouraging is that ingenious people have already produced what seems to be workable systems and manufacturers are investing millions to perfect and market them.
Concern about the wasteful use of energy is one element that must be kept in mind in evaluating these new systems. On this element the highest rating goes to the Swedish composting toilet, since it requires no electricity, gas, pumped-in water, or any other form of energy once it is installed. The biological toilet is a close second; it requires no fuel or water, except for an initial amount, but does require the weekly addition of bacteria and enzymes. The two household collection systems use no energy in themselves but require the expenditure of energy to operate the bi-weekly collection system. One of the systems might pay for itself by the production of methane gas, which could be sold for household or industrial use.
All other devices in the categories above require some use of electricity, oil, or gas and, in addition, the vacuum toilet uses small amounts of pumped-in water. It would take a detailed study of each system in actual use by many families for a period of months to make valid rankings among them, and to compare their total energy requirements in a city of, say, 100,000 people with the great amount of energy needed for pumping millions of gallons of fresh water and sewage a day through the traditional centralized disposal system of that city.
The economics of the new equipment may favor a sewerless society over traditional methods. In some places it now costs a builder from $1,000 to $1,700 to connect a new house to a sewer line, in addition to the cost of commodes and waste lines in the house. Such costs would go a long way to pay for the new devices. But even if present costs were doubled, the new equipment would be worth installing because of its great ecological benefits.
Clearly the transition to the sewerless society will be a task which will take decades. As a first step the new devices could be installed where no sewer lines exist; and they could be installed as original equipment in our growing suburbs and new towns. Finally they could be used as replacement equipment in existing cities and towns, block by block, with the help of public funds in whole or in part.
In the meantime, what about the tens of billions already programmed for new sewer lines and treatment plants? We have no choice but to proceed with building these facilities, even though they will be only an interim clean-up measure. When the sewerless society arrives sewage treatment plants can be converted to cleaning off-street storm drainage, in itself a heavy ecological burden for rivers and lakes to absorb.
While awaiting the sewerless society we can make better use of centralized sewage sludge than stockpiling it in its old quarries, burning it, or dumping it in the ocean off our bathing beaches. For many years Milwaukee has dried it and sold it in 50-pound bags as a garden fertilizer under the name "Milorganite". The U.S. Department of Agriculture has an encouraging experiment under way at its Beltsville, Maryland, station to compost sludge from the Blue Plains treatment plant in Washington. The sludge is heated for 10 days and is then mixed with wood chips and composted for about three weeks. The temperature in the heaps rises to 150 degrees F, and the resultant product is said to be odorless and nearly sterile. Nevertheless the White House turned down an offer to spread the finished compost on the south lawn.
A few experiments are under way to pipe liquid sewage to farmlands and forests, where it is sprayed as a fertilizer. This has a double advantage: the waste is recycled to the land and the water, filtered by the soil, replenishes the water table. But the long-range effect is not yet clear; there may be an undesirable buildup of heavy metals and toxic chemicals in the soil, and air drift of pathogenic organisms is possible. Such land treatment for all municipal sewage would require immense tracts of land near large cities; for example, about 124,000 acres near Washington, D.C., and more than one million acres near New York City.
Agricultural use of sludge and compost from household sources like vacuum, oil-flushed, and composting toilets would involve less danger of accumulating heavy metals and toxic chemicals in the soil than would sludge from municipal plants since the harmful contaminants generally come from factories that dump their wastes into municipal sewers. But regulations to discourage householders from dumping paints, pesticides, and crankcase oil into their toilets might still be needed.
Another use of sludge would be for methane production. Plans for the new headquarters building of the U.N. Environmental Programme, Nairobi, Kenya, call for generating methane gas from many waste sources such as leaves and manure.
Sewerless systems would offer developing nations the chance to avoid the sanitation errors of the industrialized ones. These systems would also be far more economical to install, if the expenses of sewer lines and treatment plants are taken into account. As an Environmental Protection Agency representative in New York City said, "If we had to do it all over again, we might do it differently, but we're kind of stuck with the system now." With no investment in sewer lines or treatment plants, the developing nations can leapfrog the flush toilet and go right to the new non-polluting technology. The government of Nigeria has approved the use of the biological toilet.
It is encouraging that more attention is now being paid to the major environmental problems created by the flush toilet. Several articles in widely read publications have recently discussed this subject. At the School of Architecture at McGill University in Montreal, study of alternatives to the flush toilet identified 60 alternative systems. On the other hand, the voluminous 1973 study of sewage problems by the National Water Commission did not contain a word about sewerless disposal methods.
As the next step, official U.S. agencies might take a more positive view of the new technology. Certain public bodies such as the Maryland state government, Montgomery County, Md., and Fairfax County,. Va., should be commended for their open-minded testing of new sewerless devices. The EPA has an experiment under way to try an incinerating toilet system in an Eskimo village in Alaska. But a more concerted effort, taking only a minute fraction of the funds being devoted to building sewers and treatment plants, would be fruitful.
For example, EPA could coordinate a nationwide testing program through state and local sanitation agencies to insure that every promising sewerless device is tested on a large scale in actual use and carefully monitored. Part of the evaluation would involve relative costs of installation and operation and energy needs. The results could then be discussed at a national conference of sanitation authorities and, hopefully, measures would be taken to encourage rapid adoption of the successful systems.
But if the tests show that no existing commercial product can do the job, then a major federal research project should be launched in view of the great ecological and financial benefits to be achieved if a sewerless solution is found. Surely the brilliant scientists of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Bureau of Standards have a contribution to make on waterless waste disposal. Federal millions are going into energy research. Sewerless waste disposal, however, is equally important to our nation's future as well as to modern society which must soon adopt methods for non-polluting disposal of human body wastes for the world's growing population.
[Footnotes omitted]
ECOLOGY: FLUSH TIMES
It was perhaps inevitable in this age of ecological concern that someone would get around to taking a hard look at toilets. For one thing, Americans waste billions of gallons of water every day flushing them. And for another, in many parts of the country the expansion of sewer systems simply hasn't kept up with the demand for new buildings, and septic tanks have been ruled out because the soil isn't porous enough to absorb sewage. The frequent result: a moratorium on the construction of badly needed new homes.
LITTLE JOHN
Sure enough, a number of companies are jumping into the market with new toilet systems that either cut down the water used in flushing or use no water at all. Household systems range in price from a $4,000 unit made by Chrysler Corp.'s space division, which gave the world the Saturn 1B rocket, to a $5 set of plastic inserts called, appropriately enough, the Little John.
The most advanced systems so far are made by Monogram Industries, Inc., Chrysler and Colt Industries. The Monogram and Chrysler systems both use mineral oil instead of water to flush waste into an underground tank.
The oil, which is lighter than the waste, rises to the top of the tank and then is cleaned and recycled for use again and again. Monogram's Magic Flush tanks are usually pumped out once a year; users of Chrysler's Aqua Sans system burn the waste in an attached incinerator. Either way, says Monogram executive Fred Stone, the sewerless toilet is the wave of the future: "It's creative, it's environmental, you wear the white hat."
Colt Industries' Envirovac system uses water, but only 3 pints per flush, compared with 4 to 7 gallons for conventional toilets. Rather then employing a standard flush apparatus, a vacuum system sucks the waste out of the bowl and forces it into a tank for pickup or routing into the local sewer system. Among conventional toilet makers, American Standard Inc. has developed a new model that uses only 3 gallons per flush. But the cheapest and simplest water saver is Metropolitan Watersaving, Inc.'s Little John. The plastic inserts reduce the capacity of the toilet tank without impairing the siphoning action. Metropolitan Watersaving maintains that Little John reduces the average flush to less than 3 gallons. White House plumbers — the real ones — were sufficiently impressed to install Little Johns in the rest rooms of the West Wing.
A third system has been developed by Clivus Multrum USA, operated by heiress Abby Rockefeller. It uses no water at all; instead, human and kitchen wastes are forced by gravity to flow through a fiber-glass compost box. Over a three-year period, 90 per cent of the waste is vaporized and escapes through an outside vent. What's left at the end of the process is largely odorless humus that can be used for fertilizer.
Any of the systems can help reduce the 52,000 gallons of water a year the average American family of four uses to flush away its 400 gallons of waste. They also will cut water costs. Except for Little John, however, none of the systems is cheap. For example, Monogram (the manufacturer of nearly all toilets used on jetliners) sells its Magic Flush for $3,000, but the company hopes to have the price down to $2,000 in a year. That is still far above the $600 to $800 cost of installing a conventional toilet. Colt says the cost of its system works out to about $800 each for a 150-home development. However, its electric-powered vacuum system can cost as much for power as it saves in water.
SALES
Still, all the companies are confident of future growth — if for no other reason than that conventional toilets cannot be installed in many areas because of restrictions on sewage disposal.
Little John sales, for example, are expected to reach approximately $1 million this year, up from $100,000 two years ago. Among the major firms, Monogram Industries is conceded to have the sales lead thus far; the company has nearly 1,000 units installed on sites ranging from a private home in Santa Fe, N.M., to a sixteen-toilet facility that serves 4,000 visitors a day at the Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes Park, Colo. But Chrysler, which was the first to develop the mineral-oil toilet and is now testing it in about 35 installations, is confident of closing the gap; it considers Monogram a Johnny-come-lately.