Episode 58 - How to solve the world’s wastewater crisis

Published: Oct. 6, 2015, 3:24 a.m.

Wastewater, sewage, bio matter… whatever you call it, there is a massive global need to figure out a better way to handle it. For thousands of years indigenous, sustainable man lived in largely closed loop energy systems much the way nature still does today. In such a loop there is no such thing as waste and energy simply transfers from one form to the next. With the advent of so called modern society’s disposable culture, human animal and agricultural wastewater has become a major environmental concern on a grand scale. Indeed more people die from the effects of untreated wastewater per year than AIDS or malaria. Unfortunately poop just doesn’t get the same headline coverage as the other two blockbuster causes.

Bill Powell of Grand Forks has had a lifelong attachment to the land whether during his early business years as a rancher in Australia, or living a sustainable lifestyle on his 10 acre plot in the Boundary Country. Several years ago he was turned on to a product that had the ability to reduce disease, clean up the environment and generate energy in the process. Indeed he saw an opportunity to both do right by Mother Nature and mankind and make a buck at the same time.