22.Sanitation+and+Wastewater

Authors: Courtney Fleming, Shannon Reynolds, Ryan Hazelwood, Andy Jensen


 * 22.1 Chapter Objective**

From a recent travel abroad trip to Costa Rica, it was really interesting to see the different on site wastewater treatment systems local Hotels of varying sizes used and the reasons as to why they actually treated their own wastewater instead having a centralized system as it is typically done in most of the United States. The objective of this chapter is to discuss these different methods and technologies used to treat their wastewater and whether or not they can be considered sustainable.


 * 22.2 Wastewater**

Wastewater is the spent water that consists of a combination of liquid and water-carried wastes from dwellings, business buildings, industrial plants, and institutions. The composition of this spent water varies in quantities of various solids, liquids, and gases. Understanding the composition and their effects on the environment is crucial for wastewater treatment. More importantly, to understand the damages untreated waste can have on the environment, as it is the environment we depend highly upon when it is needed to assure sanitized living conditions, farming conditions, and a potable supplying of drinking water.

Water is essential for life and plays a vital role in the proper functioning of the Earth's ecosystems. Water pollution has a serious impact and therefore wastewater systems need to be regulated, which is not always the case. Wastewater treatment in the United States is heavily regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA has a set of standards wastewater treatment centers must oblige to prior to discharging clean wastewater back into the environment. To assure their standards are met, the majority of the United States has centralized treatment facilities for quality and control purposes. This is done to assure the logevity of water bodies and their surrounding environment.


 * 22.3 Wastewater** **Treatment in Costa Rica**

Costa Rica wastewater management is mostly a domestic operation that every household directly controls. These decentralized systems are a perennial national challenge as it is next to impossible to assure that all residents manage their waste correctly. The typical system residents use to manage their wastewater is with a septic tank. Costa Rican environment consists of high tropical temperatures and moist environments as these two measures create soils that represent an excellent environment for bacterial degradation of organic wastes in sewage. While traveling abroad in Costa Rica, a travel guide writer by the name of Chip claimed that 90% of all wastewater is directly discharge into water bodies untreated. Direct sewage discharge can cause eutrophication of oceans, river, and lakes. This natural phenomenon is the ecosystems response when harmful waste is introduced into an aquatic system, and from this water is depleted of its oxygen and algal blooms. Currently estimated, 94600 squared miles of marine ecosystems have been affected by eutrophication. This negatively has an impact on fisheries, livelihoods and the food chains [2].

Since the majority of the country is decentralized, residents treat there water on site all over the country. This is actually done because there are no sewer systems, and if not properly done the people would just be polluting their own dwelling. So yes, this decentralized system can lead to people heavily polluting land and water as they have no incentive besides the incentive of keeping their own land pure. Though this incentive should be enough, sometimes it just is not. Even with regulations in the states, waters are still heavily polluted as people tend to stray from laws.

Hotels on the other hand, at leat the ones seen on the study abroad trip, go beyond just a septic tank. This also has to do with their incentives, which are more than the ones the residents of Costa Rica have. Large hotel firms such as the Hilton lease their land from the government in 25 year terms. At the end of the term if the hotel company is not operating in a green manner they will not extend their contract. In fact, if the Hotel is not operating in a green manner at any time, the government will come in and shut them down. Having this type of power over a hotel company such as the Hilton, you bet their incentive to behave green is obliged to, and not being green would be improper wastewater management. This enforcement creates a sustainable practice, and typically all big resorts have state of the art wastewater treatment operations to assure proper treatment.

The next few sections will briefly cover sustainable wastewater practices some resorts implement. The information for this section come from direct tours on the Costa Rica study abroad trip.


 * 22.4 Rancho Margot**

Rancho Margot is a unique farm that revolves around practicing sustainability outside of La Fortuna in Costa Rica. One of their practices involves wastewater sustainability. This ranch is very unique as they have close to zero waste leaving their property. Like most residents in Costa Rica, their main wastewater system is with the use of septic tanks. These septic tanks are used for each bungalow on site, and the entire bunk house that guests can rent out when they stay on the ranch. Ranch Margo also raises cattle, chicken and pigs. This is where the ranch gets very creative. Animal waste is separated from the liquid waste, and once separated, the liquid is sent to an anaerobic digester. Liquids sent to the anaerobic digester are broken down by microorganism, the product of this process produces methane gas. This methane gas then is used to power the kitchen on the ranch. The solids that are removed prior to the digester are removed because they do not use a mixing tank. These solid removed are mixed with California red worms. Red worms break down the solid watse into worm casting which is an highly organic matter great for fertilizer. Food waste and leaf litter is put in a hot compost. This hot mix is piled on top of PVC coils which have water running through them. Using the heat naturally produced by this hot compost process has the capabilities of heating water up to 150⁰F. They utilized this biological process to heat the water throughout the ranch. The fact that all human and animal waste is used and nothing is discharged back into the environment, Rancho Margot is definitively practicing sustainability.




 * 22.5 Octal Beach Resort**

Octal Beach Resort is a Costa Rican resort that practices sustainable tourism. They are apart of the 5 leaf system and currently have been awarded three leaves for their efforts towards sustainability. Since Costa Rica mainly has a decentralized wastewater treatment systems, this hotel must treat their own grey and black water on site. What they do with their effluent waters is why they are considered sustainable, even though this alone has nothing to do with the 5 leaf rating system. At Octal Beach Resort they can treat a max of 18000 gallons at any given time. Their treatment operation consists of an aeration tank, sedimentation tank, granular filtration, and a bio reactor. Once the black and gray water are treated, it is discharge directly into their sprinkler lines to water all vegetation throughout the resort, and the sludge that is removed during the process is used to fertilize all vegetation throughout the resort. This operation consists of no effluent water being discharge into public streams like most in the states do. Water will infiltrate into groundwater, but the water has been treated and will be further treated by Costa Rica's rich soil. Octal Beach Resort is interesting because they are practicing other options instead of the typical method of discharging effluent wastewater into open water. This practice should be considered sustainable because the system they have in place is not affecting future generations. As well this hotel needs this system to keep in operation, and that in turn creates jobs and brings more opportunity into the local area for others to work as well.




 * 22.6 Hotel Marenco**

This hotel did not exactly practice sustainable methods as the two mentioned prior did. They however did use a septic tank for their wastewater which is checked on by government officials once a month. The use of a septic tank is sustainable. The reason this little resort is being mentioned is because how they treated their gray water, which they actually did not treat at all. The resort was situated on the hill side just above the pacific ocean in a primary forest. This land was aquired many decades ago and has been passed down through family. This is why they actually can operate in such a remote area. People staying at the resort all have their own little cabanas to stay in. The gray water that comes from the sink and shower in each of these cabanas travels through a pipe that discharges gray water right into the soil. A lot of soaps and cleaning products people use have chemicals that are considered bad for the environment. This gray water easily infiltrates into the soil and will travel to the pacific ocean. This is not a sustainable practice assuming people are not using environmentaly friendly cleaning products.




 * 22.7 Purpose of Sustainable Wastewater**

The main purpose of sustainable watewater practice is to eliminate the negative effects it has on the environment. Such as wastewater-related emissions from treatment systems as they produce methane gas and nitrous oxide, both which are powerful global warming gas. The reduction of human caused eutrophication on coastal regions which already are a fragile ecosystem, as well in rivers and lakes. If water is depleted of its oxygen aquatic life can not survive. As everyone already knows, fresh water is a precious resource as it serves many purposes, so pollution of any water body is a cause for alarm.



Human actions typically lead to water pollution, that being said, in many cases we can do something about it. Investing into improved sanitation and water treatment technologies is one way, as well investing into the rehabilitation and restoration of nature’s water purification systems is another [2]. In May 2010 the EPA issued its Clean Water and Drinking Water Infrastructure Policy as part of its efforts to promote sustainable infrastructure within their water sector [1]. This information regarding the EPA and their movement towards sustainable wastewater practices was easily available via the internet, but that is not the case thus for for Costa Rica as most of their wastewater treatment systems are decentralized.


 * 22.9 Conclusion**

From the brief three week study abroad trip in Costa Rica where only decentralized wastewater treatment systems were seen, Rancho Margot was a head of the game in term of sustainable wastewater management, and secondly would be the Octal Beach Resort. Either way, it was pleasantly surprising seeing places taking the initiative of practicing sustainable wastewaste treatment for the better good of the environment, and especially Rancho Margot for doing it just to do it, and as well to teach people sustainable practices.


 * References**
 * 1) []
 * 2) Corcoran, E. C. Nellemann, E. Baker, R. Bos, D. Osborn, H. Savelli, "SIck Water? The central role of wastewater management in sustainable development," Bireland Trykkeri AS, Norway, 2010.