There may be lots of things that keep you awake at night, staring at the ceiling, wondering. Where your plumbing waste goes after it leaves your home probably isn’t one of those things, though.
Most people flush their toilets, or run their garbage disposal, and don’t think twice about what they’re doing, but understanding the journey your waste takes may also help you understand the real importance of regular sewer and drain cleanings.
Read on to find out what happens to household waste as it passes through different waste treatment systems from septic tanks to municipal plants, to cesspools and electrical plants!
When You Have a Septic System
In a septic tank system, your waste is treated right on your own property. The system has two parts:
The tank, which removes solid waste and grease from the wastewater, and the drain field, which allows the wastewater to be naturally treated by minerals in the soil.
When waste leaves your home, it travels through drain pipes into the septic tank. Solid waste sinks to the bottom, becoming sludge, as grease accumulates into scum.
The leftover water, called effluent, travels through pipes into the drain field, where it filters through various layers of soil until it returns to being groundwater.
When it Goes to The City’s Water Treatment Plant
If you live in a city, it is probable that your plumbing is linked to a central sewer system, which likely uses gravity drains to move your waste to the city treatment plant.
In these municipal sewage treatment plants, water can be treated in one to three phases. They are as follows:
- In primary treatment, water is treated much like it is in a septic tank. Solids and grease are separated out and disposed of, and the effluent continues on to the next phase.
- In secondary treatment, the effluent is aerated, and live bacteria is introduced to eat up organic material in the water. This removes around 90% of the bacteria in the water.
- Tertiary treatment consists of adding chemicals like chlorine to the water to remove elements like nitrogen and phosphorous and kill off any remaining bacteria that remain in the water.
What Are Some Other Ways to Treat Waste?
In an electric treatment plant, secondary treatment is performed in electric tanks, they spray the water on to large tubes called media to aerate.
These plants otherwise run precisely the same as any other sewage treatment plant. Cesspools are another somewhat common water treatment option in rural areas.
They perform much like a septic tank, except that they are constructed in a pit in the ground that is lined with brick or cement blocks. This lining eliminates the need for a drain field since the effluent can seep through the porous materials directly into the soil.
Now that you know the whole journey your waste takes, make sure it doesn’t have a problem starting that journey! Keep your drains and sewers clean with NixCo Plumbing Inc. services! Give us a call today at (513) 445-5142 for service in Mason, OH!