My name is Börje Brandt and I'm situated in Sweden.
I have designed a new innovative and environmental friendly concept to clean and recycle gray water from shower, hand-sink and kitchen-sink to be reused for shower, hand-sink and kitchen-sink use for common households. This concept has a Hugh reduction capacity for up to 3.500 % (calculated on Swedish water usage per person and day 175 - 200 liter).
The concept will only use 2.5 – 3.5 liter of water for taken a shower, washing hands, do the dishes per person and day.
The 2.5 – 3.5 liters of water is the loss of water per day and person for this concept, that a person needs to collect once a week and refill into the system.
This concept of a water cleaning & recycling system will act as a natural biological copy (a biomimetic solution) of how water is cleaned in the nature, and by doing so in a micro format solution. No chemicals will be used in the process, just living materials, green water cleaning plants, gravel and sand together with membranes and filters.
This concept will also be able to collect and store rainwater for the purpose to be used for showering, washing hands, do the dishes and flushing toilettes. Also connect a small greenhouse with hydroponic irrigating system (or greenhouse tents with water irrigating system) to the concept and in that way reduce the water usage of growing crops & vegetables with up to 90%. The system can also be connected to greenhouse tents to recirculate water for as little loss of water as possible.
The physical shape of the concept is around 2.200 x 2.200 x 500-600 mm. Slushy organic material in kitchen-sink will be thrown in the compost or topsoil toilette for composting and slushy water will use for irrigating crops and vegetables. Natural and bio-degradable products for hygiene care and cleaning activities will be promoted. For western countries the water needs to be refilled once a month with approximately 80 – 100 liters per person for a common household, for developing countries the system will be refilled once a week with around 20 – 25 liters per person. The water system will have 800-900 liters of water in a closed loop (the system needs to be filled up from start).
For people living in the developing countries, who needs to conduct walkabouts every day and often several times per day to collect water, this system in a simplified version will support the people and the families so they can collect water just once a week. In that way, women (who often is the one who are collecting water) can participate in labour activities and the children can participate in school activities. The system will improve sanitation, improve health and improve a better life for people living in regions with water shortages and water scarcity. To finance the water cleaning and recycling system the idea is to use micro-credit loans and also to investigate the “Green Fund” that is set to open 2015. Production of the water cleaning and recycling systems for the developing countries will be outsourced to the developing countries domestic markets.
A production line for and within developing countries are calculated to 465 – 560 GBP exclusive VAT, and with micro-credit loans (15 years/1%) the goal is to have a monthly cost of 3-3,5 GBP.
In this concept (to construct a prototype) I have a Professor in land and water resources engineering from KTH (School of Architecture and the Built Environment) in Stockholm and a Professor and a associate professor from the University of Uppsala in air, water and landscape sciences. An associate professor from the University of Linkoping has also committed collaboration with this concept. Contacts with leading academia and suppliers of membranes, filters etc. and a network of entrepreneurs within natural water cleaning technologies all within Sweden have been established.
In my work with the concept I have also a R&D Institute in Sweden that is working with sensors for maintain water quality control.
With this water cleaning & recycling system there would be:
• Decreased stress on the groundwater resources.
• Decreased stress due conflicts between countries and also domestic conflicts of water ownerships.
• Decreased stress on the environment due less transportation with water trucks.
• Deceased stress on the very often very bad sanitation piping systems.
• No need have buried sanitation pipelines if you will use topsoil toilette solutions.
• Decreased stress on the environment due we will promote the use of natural/organic and bio-degradable products for hygiene, cleaning and detergents usage.
• Will handle bacteria and parasites due a solar heating solution, and also a 100 % bio-degradable solution that kills bacteria.
• Can be a two way solution that will clean up and recycle water for irrigating purpose, with the use of greenhouse tents.
• A better awareness from the public, to understand that a better water efficient solution to clean and recycle water will be for the best of all people.
Why clean and reuse water for shower, hand-sink and kitchen-sink use?
UN itself calculates that around 1,8 billion people will suffer of water scarcity due the year 2025.
Due the population growth on our globe, we need to use more than 1.000 times the water amount we need to drink per day per person for food production. Agriculture production world-wide uses more than 70% of our potable water.
The climate change consequences will among others raise the average temperature and as for an example the toxic blue-green algae will grow. The consequences will also favor bacteria and parasites that can make water transportation systems toxic, and in the end poison humans.
Flooding makes also a toxic tribute to the nature due the spread of toxic waste from industries, and that also in the end leaks down to the ground-water systems and gets back to us while using old pumping systems or the need to drill for new deeper water wells. There are all ready today contaminated areas around the world where people cannot use ground-water due toxic pollutions such as heavy metals, dissolving agents, pesticides, plant protecting agents, natural gas, soaking leaching of plastics, oil among others. Several cities in US has contaminated drinking water.
Of China's 664 cities 60 % are suffering of water shortages. 21 % of China's water resources are unfit for use as potable water or irrigating. In China the pollution of the environment costs on yearly basis around 8-12 % of the China GDP. China will invest 610 billion USD to clean water resources and to cut down the emissions for the next 10 years.
The World Economic Forum calculates yearly investments of minimum 772 billion USD. Today there are 30 cities with more than 10 million citizens, so called MEGA cities. Due 2010 almost every city stood under increased water shortages.
Conclusion: We need to better protect and minimize the use of clean potable water. For areas that we don’t need to use potable water we need to use recycled water instead, so in that way we can use much smaller amounts of fresh and potable water just to drink it.
My question, is your organization would be interested to support my efforts to construct a first prototype for the benefits for common households in our world that are suffering of water scarcity and shortages today and in the near future?
I need to locate funding for the first prototype of water cleaning and recycling system and potential sites.
Observe: The concept will not clean water for potable water purpose.
Any other questions please let me know.
With very best regards from Sweden
Börje Brandt
Regulus teknikutveckling
Storgatan 6J, SE-93431 Kåge
Sweden
Phone: +46 910 53485 or +46 70 3607580
Mail: boerje.brandt@allmail.se; Skype: boerje.brandt