It’s not the most fragrant part of our homes, but on the other hand, we can’t do without them. Septic tanks and house cleaners are necessary and we must also take proper care of them, as well as the result that flows from them. How to arrange it as easily, elegantly and also ecologically as possible?
When looking for a possible way to care for septic tanks and cleaning plants, from which we need sufficiently high-quality services, we can of course go to the store for relatively aggressive chemical preparations that can deal with the accumulated dirt. Only well-functioning tanks and treatment plants can ensure sufficiently purified wastewater that will not harm the environment. But if you are thinking about ecology at the same time, then you will certainly prefer to choose a solution that directly . In this fight we find an unexpected, but all the more powerful ally – a fairly common willow tree.
Finishes the job of cleaners
How to use the tree that we are used to seeing on the banks of streams to manage waste water, especially in more remote areas, where central sewerage has not yet arrived despite all efforts? The main problem in such areas is limited capacity of smaller domestic wastewater treatment plants. Therefore, they cannot process all the delivered material perfectly enough, and nature can thus be overwhelmed with unwanted substances, mainly phosphorus and nitrogen. Although these are elements that we need to live, in excessive concentration they become a great risk to the environment, especially when they contaminate groundwater.
Willows can handle a lot of work
Even if the septic tanks undergo basic cleaning, both biological and mechanical, in order to achieve maximum purity of the outgoing water, it would be necessary to use special financially and energy-demanding filters – or we can simply plant willows in the garden. Don’t you believe?
Everything will be arranged by the roots
Scientific teams from many prestigious universities, for example from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, have been looking at the method of using willows to purify wastewater. At the same time, this tree is not chosen at random; it is their advantage exceptionally extensive and strong root systemswhich are adapted to absorb a huge amount of water. It is this property that the experts used for an innovative solution: If the waste water from the treatment plant is led through a specially designed system of the so-called willow bed, its resulting purity is incomparably better than in its original state.
Biological pump for pollutants
How does it work? We can imagine the willow as biological pump. The roots very actively absorb water, which is further transported to the leaves, from where it evaporates into the environment. But at the same time they also “pull” and store the main nutrients from the water – the already mentioned nitrogen and phosphorus, but also others. Scientists have a clear explanation why such doses will not harm the willow: these trees have such large growths in a single year, which we can regularly “harvest” for example for pom-poms or simply for biomass, that they consume the entire supply of the given minerals without any problems.
Nature will help us and herself
So it’s clear: if we want to return to natural solutions and not cause problems for future generations by handing over the space we live on to them in a devastated state, we usually just have to look at the possibilities offered to us nature itself. Using the willow as an example, we can see that it is actually quite easy. It is only about our good will and effort.
