"Dirty Water" Explained

So, here goes the much-promised post on my lab-mate's work on treatment of wastewater, coming out of turkey processing plants.

The lab, the boss, Karen Mancl (pronounced Man-sil) and stand-in boss, Rashmi.

hmm...lots of food! wait a second...


Read the label carefully. This is where all the wastewater is stored. Refrigeration prevents decay of organic matter and thereby, the stink that we get in sewers and septic tanks.

Wastewater from the turkey processing plant - "dirty", smelly, red in color, full of animal blood and fat, high in carbon content (BOD)

It needs to go through these tower like structures, filled with sand, pea gravel /textile felt, where it gets filtered. Microbes growing on the media (sand, felt, etc) eat the carbon present in the wastewater, and reduce the organic content, thereby, cleaning the water.

The final outcome looks like this - clear and devoid of any suspended or organic matter. This water has very low BOD, and it almost drinkable, except for one thing - disinfection. It needs to be treated with disinfectants like chlorine, ozone before it can be consumed by humans. I am working on the disinfection, and that will be another blogpost sometime later.

Hope this was interesting enough.