ECOFOSSA- An ecological solution for human waste treatment

Sustainability

Tavares Gilmar

Professor at Federal University of Lavras

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A solution economically feasible, ecologically correct, socially fair, culturally adequate, technologically appropriate, scientifically proved for human waste treatment.

The Ecofossa is a Sustainable Socio-environmental Technology of Agroecology, also known as Evapotranspiration Basin or Septic Tank. It is a natural system for treating water from conventional toilet discharges. This system prevents soil, surface water and groundwater pollution and does not generate any effluent at all. In the Ecofossa, human waste is naturally transformed into nutrients for plants, which remove water from the system through evapotranspiration, returning it completely clean to the environment.

 

How it works and requirements for use of the Ecofossa

First, it is necessary to separate the water used in the house into grey water and sewage water. Only the sewage water that comes out of the toilets should go to Ecofossa. The grey water that comes out of the washing machine, sinks, and showers, should go to another treatment system, such as the circle of banana trees or biological filter with gravels, which is also easily constructed and without the need for soil sealing.

The Ecofossa is a construction rectangular hole dug and sealed, dimensioned in one meter in depth and two square meters per person of the family.

 

 

This space is filled with different layers of materials. It is planted with fast-growing plant species that like and need a lot of water, such as banana trees, taioba and yam, or garden flowers.

 

 

Materials and tools for building

Materials: Broken porous material, like bricks, roof tiles or building debris; Crushed Stone; [1]Fine and medium sands; Old car tires, cement and/plastic screen, Land.

Tools: Shovel; Hoe; Digger; Pushcart; Pickaxe, Measuring tape; Trowel.

 

1 – Trench: You need to always dig 1 meter deep per 2 m2 per person and seal the soil. It is known that two cubic meters of basin for each resident are enough for the system to work without an overflow. The recommendation for sizing the basin is: 2m width and 1m depth. The length is equal to the number of residents in the house. For example, in a place with five residents, the dimension looks like this:

(LxPxC)=2x1x5 = 10 m3.

2 – Reception chamber (it is constructed by a series of used tires, aligned horizontally): First, organize the column of used tires. You need to place broken bricks or tiles between them to allow better circulation of the (used water) effluent.

3- Layer of building debris (rubble):

Here, on rubble layer it is where the natural anaerobic digestion of the effluent takes place. The effluent pours off through the small spaces between the tires.

4- The Coarse gravel and Fine gravel Layer: In these layers begins the natural filtering of wastewater. This filtering allows and helps the healthy development of plant roots.

5- The Layer of Sand: With this layer, the natural filtering of the used water continues. The water here is refined.

6- The Layer of land: It is placed on the surface of the basin. This layer is placed for better development of the plants, in order to fertilize them with composting.

7- Plants: After the anaerobic decomposition of organic matter and its mineralization, plant roots absorb the available water and nutrients. The nutrients that leave the system are incorporated into the biomass of these plants.

Raffia bags can be filled with soil in order to construct a small protective wall around the surroundings. After you place these bags around the Ecofossa, they must be tamped down.

Operating dynamics: With the increase in the volume of sewage in the tank, the water also fills the gravel and sand layers until it reaches the soil layer above. Through the soil level, it moves by a capillary rise to the surface. Thus, the evapotranspiration tank allows the water, which would be eliminated from the system, to remain there, also performing other functions. 

 

References:

“Scientific Validation and Extension Bias for the Ecofossa (Evapotranspiration basin)”, ISBN 978-3-330-19848-7,  Novas Edições Acadêmicas, Amboko M. Benjamin (Aut.), George A. Silva Gomes (Aut.), Gilmar Tavares (Ed.), 2017

 “VALIDAÇÃO CIENTÍFICA E VIÉS EXTENSIONISTA” “SCIENTIFIC VALIDATION AND EXTENSION BIAS” http://ciencia.ufla.br/pt/todas-opiniao/625- scientific validation and extension bias-a.

 UFLA project is certified in the Bank of Social Technologies of the Bank of Brazil https://ufla.br/arquivo-de-noticias/38-ascom/3744-projeto-da-ufla-e-certificado-no-banco-de-tecnologias-sociais-do-banco-do-brasil

 

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