Global climate change is a reality, and the only way we, as a nation and a species, are going to avoid catastrophe is to utilise our resources more sensibly.
There are lots of ways of decreasing waste, saving water and generating alternative energy. But there’s one piece of technology that does all three at once – a biodigester. And the Overstrand Municipality on the Western Cape’s southern coastline is the first local authority in South Africa to pass plans for one in an urban area.
That’s quite a big step, because biodigesters deal with the unmentionables we all prefer not to think about. But it’s not thinking that creates so many problems. Let’s face it, none of us likes to really reflect on what happens after we flush the toilet, but the reality is that we use litres and litres of perfectly good drinking water to flush away our waste, which is then processed at the cost of quite a bit of energy before being released into the sea or river systems.
More and more people are realising that they are flushing away good quality nutrients and energy, and so are looking at alternative ways of dealing with human waste – and have discovered loads of benefits. It’s all about thinking of it as a resource, not just something we need to get rid of. One such person is Peter Bysshe. When he bought his house in Stanford, he needed to decide whether to install a new septic tank, or to go for a biodigester.
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