[GreenYes] Food debris belongs outside the pipe.

["Doug Koplow" <koplow@no.address>]

Alan,

First, I own no stock in Dispose-All or other machines that chop food waste to the sewer system.

However, I'm curious to learn more about the nature of the sewage disposal problem.  In my experience, most raw sewage hits rivers during wet weather events, when massive volumes of runoff overwhelm sewage treatment plants; or due to undetected or uncorrected illegal discharges.  These problems would not be affected by whether or not some food waste is in the system.  Similarly, most problems with effluent and sludge quality seem to be due to industrial discharges of chemicals, not the inclusion of a wider array of organic, biodegradable wastes.  Is the experience in DE different?

Doug

_______________________________
Doug Koplow
Earth Track, Inc.
2067 Massachusetts Avenue - 4th Floor
Cambridge, MA  02140
www.earthtrack.net
Tel:  617/661-4700
Fax: 617/354-0463

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>>> Alan Muller <amuller@no.address> 08/09/06 08:27AM >>>

At 09:38 PM 8/8/2006 -0700, Helen Spiegelman wrote:

>My impression is that there is impending a paradigm shift in sewage
>treatment towards less water-intensive approaches. Anyone read Lester
>Brown's Plan B 2.1? Rather than turn food into liquid waste, might we end
>up turning liquid waste into solid waste?
>
>H.

I think there is a sort of historical/technical revisionism going on 
here.  We always heard about how great sewers are.  Now we are 
beginning to see that we replaced stinky outhouses and cesspits and 
honey wagons with massive surface and groundwater pollution.  (In 
2006, Wilmington Delaware still dumps around half a billion gallons 
per year of untreated sewage into rivers....)

The "disposall" people seem curiously silent on the need for better 
sewage treatment, even as they want us to use their products to add 
loads to the systems....  When they show up in Delaware and help us 
fight this battle I will be more receptive to their arguments on this list.

Alan Muller

Alan Muller, Executive Director
Green Delaware
Box 69
Port Penn, DE 19731 USA
(302)834-3466
fax (302)836-3005
greendel@no.address 
www.greendel.org 





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