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Old 03-04-2005, 03:40 PM   #8 (permalink)
Poloboy
Insane
 
Location: Canada
Quote:
I might be grossed out too, but realistically, how many gallons of your friends' and neighbors' sewage go into the ocean a day?
100 million litres. That's a little more than 25 million gallons I guess. My friends and neighbours and I and the other 300,000 people in this small/medium sized city flush 25 million gallons into the ocean daily.




Spived 2, the many microbes in the ocean don't really solve the problem. There certainly are billions of microorganisms in the ocean that can decompose an incredible variety of disgusting things. The ocean's about 4 degrees celsius though, and most of these decomposers thrive at optimal temperatures of 25+ degrees celsius. At 4 C, their metabolism is SLOW. At a certain point they won't be able to keep up with the crap we throw at them. The repercussions certainly won't be seen for at least a generation, but I think they will surface at some point, and it won't be pretty. A lot of the bacteria that breakdown specific organic components of sewage are obligate aerobes as well, which means they can't live in the ocean, there isn't enough oxygen in the water.

It's like arguing that trees naturally grow and spread, so mass clearcutting is ok because they can grow back. In both cases it's not quite that simple.

I don't know anything about composting toilets lurkette, what are they?
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