Wastewater

In regards to recovering wastewater the following comes from Cradle to Cradle page 126,

"In 1992 a a model waste treatment system developed by Michael and his colleagues was opened at Silva Jardin, in the province of Rio, Brazil. It was locally fabricated using clay pipes that carried wastewater from village residents to a large settling tank, then into an intricately connected series of small ponds full of an astonishing diversity of plants, microbes, snails, fish, and shrimp. The system was designed to recover nutrients along the way, producing clean, safe drinking water as a by-product. Farmers competed for access to this purified water and to the sludge’s valuable nitrogen, phosphorus, and trace materials as nutrients for farming."

This type of system requires a separation of biological and technological wastes.