Hi, BTN.
My name's Pollyanna.
My question is -
where does toilet water go once we flush it down the toilet?
What are you doing?
I'm trying to work out where the toilet water goes.
Hmm, OK.
What are we doing?
Oh, she's trying to figure out where the toilet water goes.
Ah, right, OK.
This wasn't getting me very far.
I've got to... Sorry.
I had to follow the pipes.
I actually really have to go.
Oh. Sorry.
Everything that goes down our toilets and our drains
travels through sewerage pipes under our homes and our streets.
So I followed the pipes and this is where I ended up.
All the sewage gets pushed out here at a water treatment plant,
or, as I like to call it, a poo plant.
To find out what happens here, I knew just the person to ask.
Hi there. I'm Amelia. Hi. Nice to meet you. I'm Kat.
Welcome to Bolivar. Thank you.
Kat is a wastewater treatment performance analyst
so she knows about all things sludge.
Yep, sludge.
This is what's left
after everything bigger than 3mm is filtered out and sent to landfill.
So here we are at the Activator Sludge Reactor
or the ASR.
And in waste water treatment, this is where all the magic happens.
So, in these big tanks here, I guess the brown bubbling mass
that you can see there is a combination of water
and a myriad of different microorganisms
that are treating the water for us and making it cleaner.
What I think is really cool about waste water treatment
is that we use bacteria to do the work for us.
OK.
So, I like to think about sewage as being full of food
for bacteria that they love.
Well, I have to ask you something, Kat -
how do you feel about the smell?
'Cause it is a little bit whiffy. Yes.
Definitely, when you've been working
in waste water treatment long enough,
you end up getting used to the smell,
and you know when your plant is working well because it smells good.
(LAUGHS) I love that you're using the word 'good'
to describe this smell.
That's cool. I'm fine with that.
Alright, well, where do we go next?
Where's the next step? Yeah, we'll go to the clarifiers.
Awesome, let's go. Come with me.
The clarifiers basically separate the happy, full bacteria
from the treated water.
Alright, Kat, so I can see this is already a whole lot fresher.
Yeah. I can see ducks.
That's a good sign, right? Absolutely, yeah.
The bacteria is sent back to the Activated Sludge Reactor
to eat some more
and the clarified water travels out to a lagoon.
It's amazing. Yeah. It's so vast.
It's like a little ocean. Look at all that poo water.
No, not anymore. Yeah, clean poo water.
The lagoons are really shallow, they're only about a metre deep,
so the sun is able to penetrate through the water
and the UV rays will kill any nasty bacteria.
Some of this water goes out to sea
and some goes to another plant where it's treated again
so it can be used for things like farming or watering local parks.
Back in the day, we used to think of waste water as just waste -
that was it, you had to get rid of it, it was a nuisance -
but really waste water is a resource.
Kat says the only part that isn't a resource is this -
stuff that shouldn't be flushed, that's wet wipes, nappies...
..and it gets weirder.
We've got a camera, we've got some phones...
A camera and a phone!
Who is putting a camera or a phone down the toilet?
I'm not sure.
I guess, you know, it's just a reminder, really,
we should be only be putting, you know, the three Ps down the toilet -
poo, pee and paper.
So, remember to spare a thought for the workers here
the next time you're in here.
You're trying to work out where the toilet water goes, aren't you?
Yeah.
(SIGHS)
Good luck.