Athens, GA | Nov. 17 

Story Highlights 

• Commode. Latrine. Potty. Loo. The Head. Crapper. Powder Room.
• No matter what you call it, all these words describe the one place you run to when “duty calls.”
• But what happens after the duty is done?
• There’s a process involved to get that water you get dirty…back to clean.
• Reporter Taylor Morgan is heading to Cedar Creek Water Reclamation Facility to learn more about the process to get clean water back in your bowl.

 

Keeping our water clean starts before it goes down the drain. 

“Baby wipes, flushable wipes, makeup removers those types of things also need to go in the trash can and not down the toilet,Theres a lot of things you can flush down the toilet, it does not mean that they should be flushed,” Laurie Loftin says. Loftin is a Water Conservation Program Specialist.

So how does it work?

Once water arrives at the Cedar Creek Reclaimation facility it goes through a screening and filtering process. Then the solid waste is removed and ends up in big green bins. This is where the process goes green. The biosolids then are taken to the landfill compost area and are mixed with leaf and limb to create a compost.

“The microorganisms do a majority of the work here they remove the nitrogen and phosphorous from the water,” says Loftin.

The water thats returned to Cedar Creek is cleaner than the water that was taken out. The Cedar Creek Reclamation Facility treats four million gallons of water a day, without the use of chemicals.