On Cleaning Efficiency


On the  Efficiency  of Wastewater-cleaning
Does it really matter where to do we eject our droppings ?
Has it anything to do with “Cleaning-efficiency” ?

At the sore moment the dire details get discovered
 – from nowhere but the very confessions gathered by the cream of wastewater-management teams, that the clear-declared effluents of modern sewage-treatment plants are the primary sources that change our watercourses to sewage-canals marked by smell, sight, and composition –
faceless spokesmen of this caste come out with their ultimate card:
“We  will  sure  overcome  these  difficulties
by increasing the Efficiency of Cleaning.”
·     This bold statement leaves us but with a conundrum.
·     Should the solution be really so simple, how it comes they have not done it before?
·     We may also ask: Should we hail such an articulation as a promising perspective, or as a hogwash of the day?
The ensuing answer decrypts the riddle. Messages with palpable emptiness are assertions of the kind that help only delaying matters smooth. The thrown-in terminus technicus is a proven device to gain confidence among the crowd of outsiders, which verbal maneuver makes the listeners believe the sewage-herd bustling around the task is up to control, there is nothing to fear from but to trust them awaiting their promised miracles to happen, the wheel is in sure hands.
Now, until these trusted hands race mindlessly over the task to reach the set increased goal without a lull, I will leisurely inform you on the infirmity of their science brief and in simple terms, trying to save part of the pain when the endless blind hope alters inevitably into a permanent cry of oath.
To see the point clear let us escort a VIP over his tossing, who is with open mind but mouth already kept shut, bearing the attacks from beneath as an aftermath of a prodigious meal, ponders deep his choices as to where to vomit. Wholly understanding both his desire and dilemma but less pinched by the circumstances, we shall investigate the alternatives.
Should he step outdoor, where trees sprung towering high from the soil in the fresh air, and deposit his vicious burden there, signs of his passing mood could hardly be traced after several days. The myriad of microorganisms whose natural habitat is the virgin soil regard the arrived surge as food though mal-delivered, yet, they will eat it away – and the passive soil will grew richer thereby. The bony sisters of hygiene and etiquette pertaining the matter are confined to the observance of restraining for a wile from trespassing the area barefooted.
However, if he with his rolling belly overfilled, be it dictated by comfort of any kind, opts for remaining sitting and thus spews his eruptive geyser right into the soup-plate before him, he might despite his physical relief face with a certain discomfort towards the future. Whether it will be wise to trust with the services about his meals those courting flunkies who are always around amid their oily pre-apologetic tirades, like “There is nothing to fear of, milord, until we are around; we shall attend the matter with haste, aiming right at enlarging the bullshit bull’s eye role of Cleaning Efficiency, definitely at a rate to meet your restored appetite, and we will re-serve the soup refined according to our utmost.”
Those who received this parable with resonance are now before accepting: something of very same applies to our combined pee and poo. Which both, however, are till date agreed on as it being the wisest way for their removal to rinse each down and away with plenty of drinking-water… only to get later as you open the tap to fill your glass (via the services of those half-tutored minions) the water (cleaned so much as their officially-proven methods permit), which inhabitants somewhat upper in the river treat exactly like you.
Believe or not, poo and pee – even their utterance may spell you out of good company, despite any of its honorable member keeps daily cozy relations with his own – is close the best part of Nature. Just like us, meaning the animal kingdom as a whole.
To help engrave the previous let us get the picture simpler. If we regard the stage before homo sapiens has taken his tentative foot on planet Earth we may see: Sewage-plants were nowhere in existence; yet, despite such dearth of these appliances even the smallest tributary carried water clean enough up to direct drinking from. All this at a time, when every creature excreted random and nonchalantly, utterly free of mental burdens as to what exigent pursuits are to be carried out with their scattered droppings. The clue for this enigma lies in this brief guidance: None of these terrestrial creatures excreted right into the face of water. One explanation for it may come from the simple fact that to spoil water steadfast would have needed to bear the discomfiture of wanderings with bellies full until at least a creek is met, since the relatively small area of open-waters are away and scattered throughout the mighty continents. The other explanation is to gain validation not before a psychologist finds ways to communicate with them and the obtained attestation enables him to claim that these creatures have an innate workings in their simpler instinct-system telling them what is proper – which workings are either at standstill or gone with other goods in us as we man grew more and more intricate in brain or otherwise.
The principal governance of Long-Term Cleanliness (itching for which we now live in the Epoch of Great Postulations) has already been touched upon in the parabola above, yet its rephrasing could not be useless in sending the message over not only for the people of the land with a timeless gift to perceive the obvious, but towards those peeping half-hearted from behind the paper-fortresses of their hundred-so publications, to chew and digest it. The mute and patient soil beneath our tramping feet is not only apt to but readily treats everything of natural origin, by which process it emerges with profit done for each participants of the system, its own part being the elevated humus-level, gained from the intricate conversion of the nastiest ostracized deportees too. This conversion, controlled by unknown collaboration of soil-microorganisms of unfathomed diversity, ends up in a soil-structure that retains its organic-matter even against intermittent soaking or heavy rain – poles apart from those inorganics deposited in enormous quantities throughout the fields as “fertilizers”, which are prone to take an easy leave (right into the water-courses – spreading thus poisoning the water-sources) not to mention here their other damages while present in the soil. The incessant renewal of the so tuned-up soil-structure has then a pivotal-role in controlling the whole terrestrial biosphere, with a buffering-capacity to dampen vicious fluctuations emerging from the incidental straight proportional with the humus-content within.
If these workings of Nature is understood well and we re-place humans into the circle of animals, I meant to point the undisturbed scenario discussed above, then it requires no new theorems to comprehend: In order to maintain Long-Term Global Cleanliness the newcomer must adopt safeguards and obey the rules that govern the System. That is:
·     The closest observance of Not and Never discharging unwanted matters directly into water of any kind is to be adhered to.
·     Also necessary is to guard alert over avoiding temptations of easing conscience by putting high trust in hands of sewage-masters, who by their blunt and vague promises of introducing soon newer-methods under project (intended to solve what they do not even understand) lead by nose mankind absorbed in their own affairs infallibly towards environmental abyss.
·     And while avoiding the mere touch of water, we must, so to speak, turn pooward for the mercy of soil, which treats us with benevolent equity.
These, however, bring no such compelling consequences that force city-dwellers to run and reach a forest in-time when their bellies issue an order. There exist arrangements other than running to and fro. Working designs has already been laid long before, but the best-fitting practice that possesses no setback yet offers the most comfort is Eutarcie’s, a lifework of Joseph Országh, professor of chemistry at Mons Belgium. He treats the whole matter along chemistry, with clear and informative explanations regarding all details of how and why.
Technologists and engineers have nothing more left than turning their faculties in this direction.
Instead of chasing the mirage of deceptive Cleaning Efficiency.

January 4, 2020     [transposing the Hungarian original of January 4, 2017]


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