Horticulturalists at Penn State have developed a waste water treatment system using plants called a 'biofilter'.The system is made up of 7 foot long upright plastic tubes filled with dirt, recycled materials such as porous rocks, cow manure and tire crumbs that encourage the growth of microbes. A variety of plants also grow out of the mixture. The tubes are placed in a foot of potting soil with crushed limestone.
When waste water, such as drainage from a washing machine, travels through the pipes and into the soil it purifies the water. The system acts as a mini wetland. The natural bacteria and plants eat the toxins in the water as food and what is left is pure water.
"We have shown that with this system we can take waste water from a washing machine and remove more than 90 percent of the pollutants within three days," said Robert D. Cameron, a doctoral candidate at Penn State. "The treated water had very low levels of suspended solids and no detectable levels of e.coli."
The biggest advantage to this biofilter system compared to systems before it, is size. One of these units is small enough to place anywhere, maybe even in homes. This way it could work as a nice indoor garden with reeds and papyrus and a greywater filter too. You can't get much more green than that.
Check out the filter in the video below:
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