Hongkongers pooh-pooh waste treatment plant, despite free spa

Yahoo – AFP, May 26, 2016

The three mineral-infused pools in the glass-walled spa, each with a different
temperature, are powered by the heat from the burning sludge (AFP Photo/
Isaac Lawrence)

Hong Kong (AFP) - It is billed as a groundbreaking way to deal with Hong Kong's human waste, and even includes an onsite spa free to residents, but a new eco-friendly sludge treatment plant has not washed with some locals.

The sustainable T-Park development blends into coastal hills near the town of Tuen Mun in the north of Hong Kong, a sleek low-rise building with a roof shaped like a wave.

Each day, the HK$5 billion ($644 million) plant treats 1,200 tonnes of sludge from the city's wastewater treatment plants to avoid it being dumped in Hong Kong's overflowing landfills.

"We can live together in a dense city 

without making the planet dirty," said 

Antoine Frerot, chairman of Veolia 

(AFP Photo/Isaac Lawrence)

The plant desalinates its own seawater and powers itself by the energy created from burning organic waste in what is the world's largest sludge incinerator.

Built by French management giant Veolia, city officials say it is "one of the most technologically advanced facilities" of its kind and will not emit pollutants.

But locals who already complain about smells emanating from a nearby landfill have protested against bringing yet more waste into the area.

And the building of a free onsite spa has been dismissed by some as a rubbish idea.

The three mineral-infused pools in the glass-walled spa, each with a different temperature, are powered by the heat from the burning sludge.

Seawater used for the pools is first desalinated at the plant and visitors can look out over ocean views as they soak.

They can also have a tour of the plant as part of their trip.

"Pure water is a symbol of purity," Antoine Frerot, chairman of Veolia, told AFP during a tour of the plant by French minister for foreign trade Matthias Fekl Wednesday.

"We can live together in a dense city without making the planet dirty."

However, Cheng Wai-kwan, 49, who lives in a village close to the plant said the spa was less than tempting.

"If I tell you I have a spa near home which is powered by burning rubbish, I don't think anyone would come," he told AFP.

He was among 40 villagers who protested at the site during the plant's official opening ceremony last week.

T-Park, the new sludge treatment facility in Tuen Mun in Hong Kong (AFP

 Photo/Isaac Lawrence)

The spa is due to open to the public next month.

Cheng said hundreds of villagers living nearby were fed up with the smell of the nearby landfill, and he worried it would get worse.

"Basically, you will have tonnes of shit brought to our district every single day. However beautifully it is being packaged, I don't think it is benefiting us," Cheng added.

A Tuen Mun district councillor said locals had never agreed to have the plant being built in their backyard.

"The government is using the spa as a compensation but I don't think it's enough," said Ho Hang-mui.

"Residents already have to shut their windows (because of the landfill). Even if the spa is free I don't think people will be able to enjoy it," she added.

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UK's first 'poo bus' goes into regular service

Bio-Bus fuelled by human and household waste, which first ran between Bristol and Bath, will operate 15-mile route four days a week

The Guardian, Press Association, Sunday 15 March 2015

Bristol’s Bio Bus runs on faeces and household waste. Photograph: Ben Birchall/PA

Britain’s first “poo bus”, which runs on human and household waste, goes into regular service later this month.

Powered by biomethane gas, the Bio-Bus will use waste from more than 32,000 households along its 15-mile route.

Operated by First West of England, the bus will fill up at a site in Avonmouth, Bristol, where sewage and inedible food waste is turned into biomethane gas.

The bus, which can seat up to 40 people, was unveiled last autumn. First is showing the bus in Bristol on Tuesday before it starts operating four days a week from 25 March.

If the route is successful, First will consider introducing more “poo buses”. The managing director, James Freeman, said: “Since its original unveiling last year, the Bio-Bus has generated worldwide attention and so it’s our great privilege to bring it to the city.

“The Bio-Bus previously made an appearance running between Bath and Bristol airport at the end of last year, but it’s only actually been used once before in the centre of Bristol itself.

“The very fact that it’s running in the city should help to open up a serious debate about how buses are best fuelled, and what is good for the environment.”

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University installs prototype 'pee power' toilet

Urinal at University of the West of England can generate electricity to power indoor lighting, which Oxfam says show potential for use in refugee camps

The Guardian, Rebecca Smithers, Thursday 5 March 2015

A toilet at the University of the West of England is proving urine can
generate electricity. Photograph: UWE Bristol

A prototype toilet has been launched on a UK university campus to prove that urine can generate electricity, and show its potential for helping to light cubicles in international refugee camps.

Students and staff at the Bristol-based University of the West of England are being asked to use the working urinal to feed microbial fuel cell (MFC) stacks that generate electricity to power indoor lighting.

The project is the result of a partnership between researchers at the university and Oxfam, who hope the technology can be developed by aid agencies on a larger scale to bring light to refugee camp toilets in disaster zones.

“We have already proved that this way of generating electricity works,” said research lead Professor Ioannis Ieropoulos, director of the Bristol BioEnergy Centre, which in 2013 demonstrated MCF stacks generating enough electricity to power a phone. “The project with Oxfam could have a huge impact in refugee camps.”

The technology uses microbes which feed on urine for their own growth and maintenance. “The MFC is in effect a system which taps a portion of that biochemical energy used for microbial growth, and converts that directly into electricity - what we are calling urine-tricity or pee power. This technology is about as green as it gets, as we do not need to utilise fossil fuels and we are effectively using a waste product that will be in plentiful supply,” said Ieropoulos.

The urinal - conveniently located near the Student Union bar - resembles toilets used in refugee camps to make the trial as realistic as possible. The equipment that converts the urine into power sits underneath the urinal and can be viewed through a clear screen.

Andy Bastable, Head of Water and Sanitation at Oxfam, commented: “Oxfam is an expert at providing sanitation in disaster zones, and it is always a challenge to light inaccessible areas far from a power supply. This technology is a huge step forward. Living in a refugee camp is hard enough without the added threat of being assaulted in dark places at night. The potential of this invention is huge.”

An estimated 6.4tn litres of urine is produced by humans across the globe every year, so researchers believe it has great potential as a cheap and readily available source of energy. Ieropoulos said the unit installed at the university would cost around £600 to set up.

A solar powered toilet designed by the California Institute of Technology for
 the Reinvent the Toilet challenge. Photograph: Michael Hanson/Gates Foundation 

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RT.com, January 07, 2015

Screenshot from YouTube user thegatesnotes

Billionaire activist Bill Gates is backing an innovation in water filtration that turns human poop into drinking water. The OmniProcessor could bring clean water to millions of people and help solve the problem of debilitating diseases.

The OmniProcessor, designed and built by Seattle engineering firm Janicki Bioenergy, burns human waste to produce electricity and water. The processor powers itself through the use of a steam engine and does not emit an odor. The machine could handle 14 tons of waste from 100,000 people, producing up to 86,000 liters of drinkable water a day, and net 250 kw of electricity.

At a demonstration of the OmniProcessor shown on GatesNotes, a smiling Bill Gates drank water from the machine, which was previously untreated sewage.

“It’s water,” said Gates in the video.

He wrote on his blog: "The water tasted as good as any I’ve had out of a bottle. And having studied the engineering behind it, I would happily drink it every day. It’s that safe."

Gates said that 2.5 billion people – or 40 percent of the global population – have no access to safe sanitation, and many people use facilities that do not safely dispose of human waste. About 1.5 million children die every year from contaminated food and water, and half of all patients in hospitals are there because of problems with water and sanitation. It is extremely costly to try and create sewage infrastructure in cities and towns that already exist, so Gates thinks the low cost water treatment machine could be revolutionary.

Screenshot from YouTube user thegatesnotes

“If you can get thousands of these things out there, then you’ve ensured the people really will grow up in a healthy way,” Gates told Wired. “They’ll live much higher quality lives. You will save a lot of lives. And you’ll have local entrepreneurs who are maintaining these things.”

The OmniProcessor, which costs $1.5 million, will undergo a pilot launch in Dakar, Senegal later this year.

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"2013 - What Now ?" – Jan 6, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) - (Text version)

“… New ideas are things you never thought of. These ideas will be given to you so you will have answers to the most profound questions that your societies have had since you were born. Inventions will bring clean water to every Human on the planet, cheaply and everywhere. Inventions will give you power, cheaply and everywhere. These ideas will wipe out all of the reasons you now have for pollution, and when you look back on it, you'll go, "This solution was always there. Why didn't we think of that? Why didn't we do this sooner?" Because it wasn't time and you were not ready. You hadn't planted the seeds and you were still battling the old energy, deciding whether you were going to terminate yourselves before 2012. Now you didn't…. and now you didn't.

It's funny, what you ponder about, and what your sociologists consider the "great current problems of mankind", for your new ideas will simply eliminate the very concepts of the questions just as they did in the past. Do you remember? Two hundred years ago, the predictions of sociologists said that you would run out of food, since there wasn't enough land to sustain a greater population. Then you discovered crop rotation and fertilizer. Suddenly, each plot of land could produce many times what it could before. Do you remember the predictions that you would run out of wood to heat your homes? Probably not. That was before electricity. It goes on and on.

So today's puzzles are just as quaint, as you will see. (1)How do you strengthen the power grids of your great nations so that they are not vulnerable to failure or don't require massive infrastructure improvement expenditures? Because cold is coming, and you are going to need more power. (2) What can you do about pollution? (3) What about world overpopulation? Some experts will tell you that a pandemic will be the answer; nature [Gaia] will kill off about one-third of the earth's population. The best minds of the century ponder these puzzles and tell you that you are headed for real problems. You have heard these things all your life.

Let me ask you this. (1) What if you could eliminate the power grid altogether? You can and will. (2) What if pollution-creating sources simply go away, due to new ideas and invention, and the environment starts to self-correct? (3) Overpopulation? You assume that humanity will continue to have children at an exponential rate since they are stupid and can't help themselves. This, dear ones, is a consciousness and education issue, and that is going to change. Imagine a zero growth attribute of many countries - something that will be common. Did you notice that some of your children today are actually starting to ponder if they should have any children at all? What a concept! ….”