The Living Machine

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The Living Machine

• By Meredith and Leah

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Main Goal

• The main goal of the living machine is to be a
  sustainable alternative to conventional waste
  disposal.
• It also provides an educational
  
  opportunity from its
  simulation of
  ecosystems.

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FACTS

• Everyday two million tons of human waste is
  disposed of in water courses
• Less then 1 of the water supply is available for
  human consumption.
• In developing nations, 90 of sewage is dumped
  untreated into usable water supplies.
• 1.2 billion people do not have access to safe
  drinking water
• More then 25,000 people die each day from water
  related illnesses.

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Traditional systems

• Traditional systems
• Use environmentally harmful chemicals
• Create toxic sludge
• Are energy intensive
• And often dispose
  improperly of toxic
  
  sludge

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Making a Difference

• Can provide cost effective onsite treatment
  systems to prevent waste from polluting rivers
  and other water sources.
• Can be installed in places where traditional
  treatment plants are not able to go
• Reduces the need to draw on precious water
  supplies for such things as irrigation and toilet
  flushing
• Economic potential in methane gas production and
  cultivation of plants able to grow in solutions
  provided by the machine

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What it does

• The living machine takes wastewater and purifies
  it to a point where it can be directly discharged
  into waterways or can be recycled
• It does so by
  utilizing a set of
  created ecologies
• Each system is
  designed
  specifically
  depending on the
  type of
  wastewater it will treat.

http//www.livingmachines.com/
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How it works

• Anaerobic settling tank this tank allows solids
  to fall out of the wastewater and sink to the
  bottom allowing it to become clearer.
• A Biofilter of bark and other soil-like materials
  this is the first filtration and first step to
  help reduce the odor
• Photosynthetic algae tank
  fix oxygen back into the
  water and provide organic
  food (dead algae)
  for
  respiration

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How it works contd

• Higher plants (typically water hyacinth) in
  aerobic tanks grow in a nutrient solution
  -provide a stable environment for microbes and
  remove heavy metals from the water.
• Microbes are an ideal source of food for plankton
  which are ideal sources for filter feeding fish
• This creates the ability for detritus-feeding
  fish to be added in later tanks so they may
  consume the larger sections of the treated
  sludge.

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Technological obstacles

• Most living machines require a greenhouse or
  other structure to protect it from colder
  weather.
• Minimal exposure to the environment so it has
  been unable to become a true ecosystem with
  natural selection and self-design and management.

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Political/Economic obstinacies

• The psychological effect of being able to drink
  your own wastewater.
• Traditional wastewater treatments have been
  embedded into our economy.
• The living system could have difficulty breaking
  through the mass scale of traditional systems.
• Costly to construct

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Negative environmental impacts

• If pollution occurs it is due to improper or
  incomplete design of the Living Machine

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References

• http//www.context.org/ICLIB/IC35/Guterson.htm
• http//www.rps.psu.edu/0009/machine.html
• http//www.rain-barrel.net/living-machine.html
• http//www.oceanarks.org/
• http//www.toddecological.com/ecomachines.html