or, why you don't see more slow sand filters out there
The traditional water treatment industry has done a great job in promoting their products as the only alternatives to your water treatment issues. This has led to a marketplace full of products that have attached revenue streams. Not so much planned obsolescence as planned dependency on replacement components and mystery chemicals and media blends that require you to have an ongoing financial relationship with your supplier. It's a business model, not a water treatment model.But, it doesn't have to be that way. In recent years, membrane filtration has been all the rage for basically any problem you can imagine with water. Ultra-fitration, a membrane technology, is pitched as THE solution to surface water treatment. If you look up the regulations though, ultra-filtration isn't listed as one of the approved technologies- it's an alternative technology along with bag filters, cartridges etc. One technology that IS listed as an approved method for treating surface water according to the Surface Water Treatment Rule is also one of the simplest and easiest to maintain- slow sand filtration. And no revenue stream. Once you put ssf in, you maintain it yourself, or hire someone to do it, but you're not joined at the hip indefinitely with your supplier. It's easy to understand why the water treatment industry has not been so interested in slow sand or related more natural systems- no ongoing revenue stream.
Simple biological and physical processes are also great for wastewater treatment and removing metals from groundwater.
Membranes are good at treating brackish waters and seawater, but that is the only area where they excel except in creating a gee whiz factor for engineers and a positive ongoing revenue stream for chemical manufacturers who need to supply all the chemicals required to maintain the membranes. Membranes also waste a lot of water, a problem in an age of shrinking water availability. Membranes should not be the go-to technology for all uses.
The present situation will remain until industry changes the business model which requires an ongoing revenue stream in their designs. There is plenty of need out there. A company selling slow sand filters or related technologies could be selling globally and never run out of new business. The other change agent- educated consumers expecting technology to be more sustainable and less wasteful.
above: a fancy shmancy ion exchange unit.
As a post script. A piece in the LA times(http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/19/local/la-me-water-fund-20130420) recently stated that EPA had found California's drinking water program out of compliance because it had failed to distribute federal funds for loans to rural communities to improve their drinking water facilities. Many times, regulators don't get tough on compliance issues because they don't know of affordable alternatives for small communities. This is a real opportunity for regulators to be in accord with the EPA, and help small communities comply with water treatment regulations. Package plant slow sand filters (www.bluefuturefilters.com/lssf.html) allow small communities to be in compliance, provide high quality water to their rate payers, and allow the regulators to do their job of protecting the nations drinking water systems. A win win for everyone.
ReplyDeleteCan you tell me what the smallest effective community size can be served by the slow sand system? What i am getting at is it suitable for a household or a group of households on a cooperative basis? (Thinking in terms of very rural developing countries NOT Calif!)
ReplyDeleteSlow sand filters certainly are appropriate for small residential use and small community applications. The smallest filters Blue Future has done are 18" diameter and 43" high. There is a concern that smaller diameters may lead to slip-streaming down the tank walls and reduced effectiveness. Actually, in my opinion, household and groups of households are the ideal application of slow sand filters.
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