1. Exploring the feasibility of seawater flush toilets for rural, coastal areas
- Author
-
Conroy, Kristen M.
- Subjects
- Bioinformatics, Ecology, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Water Resource Management, Sustainability, Sociology, Sanitation, Public Health, Microbiology, Environmental Science, seawater toilet flushing, urine diversion, microbial community, intermittent sand bioreactor, wastewater treatment, saline wastewater, ammonia, nitrogen, diffusion of innovation, UDDT, ecological sanitation, high salt, marine sediment, coastal sanitation, rural sanitation, on-site sanitation
- Abstract
The United Nations aims to have sanitation access for all by 2030. Lack of sanitation is a global crisis tied to water availability, environmental pollution, human health, personal dignity, and nutrient loss. This dissertation focuses on a sustainable sanitation solution for coastal areas, namely on-site sanitation with urine diversion and seawater toilet flushing. The main concepts explored are salinity impacts on microbial communities in treatment systems, ability of a septic-tank/intermittent sand bioreactor system to treat seawater-salinity septic-tank effluent and the barriers and facilitators to adoption of urine diversion dry toilets. These three concepts answer fundamental questions about dilution requirements for seawater wastewater and social acceptance of urine diversion systems. Results show that urine diversion seawater toilet flushing with septic tanks and intermittent sand bioreactor treatment systems could feasibly produce discharge-quality effluent and gain social acceptance.
- Published
- 2022