By Will Brooks and Daniel
Schlenker
This is a biological wastewater system
that mimics the cleaning functions of
wetlands.
The goal is to provide a cleaner, more
sustainable way of treating wastewater.
The system can produce fish, and edible
and ornamental plants as byproducts
Produces biomass rather than sludge
The system is easily adaptable to filter
out different primary pollutants.

http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/08/06/living-machines-turning-wastewater-clean-with-plants/
 The
living Machine system was
developed by John Todd, a biologist.
 Developed
in the mid 1970’s
http://www.findhorn.org/gallery/?level=picture&id=123
http://www.uvm.edu/envnr/nr288/img/JohnTodd.jpg
•
•
•
John Todd has re-organized natural
resources to transform water from dirty to
clean.
In his most basic design, waste-water moves
through a minimum of three different
ecological systems that process and filter it
in different ways.
Each ecological system is different from the
others so that it can treat waste-water based
on its own needs, after which the water
moves to the next community.

Organisms from protozoa to shrubs and trees are
grown on racks suspended within the tanks.
http://www.treehugger.com/john-todds-winning-design.jpg
 His
new technology uses bacteria, fungi, plants,
snails, fish, and clams that do well by breaking
up pollutants. These organisms soak up the
nutrients they need from the pollutants and
breakdown all the rest.

http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/08/06/living-machines-turning-wastewater-clean-with-plants/
 This
type of cleaning is referred to as the
living machine because the waste is
broken down by all living organic matter
but it breaks it down so well that it acts
almost like a machine.

http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/08/06/living-machines-turning-wastewater-clean-with-plants/
 The
main obstacle that stops the creation
of these living machines is the fact that it
takes so much time for all the waste water
to be cleaned and purified and the
remaining waste water to be broken
down.
 Different
species may have advantages
over other species due to the fact that the
wastewater treatment makes better
ecosystems for different species that may
not thrive as much in the wild.
 Due
to the living ,machine being
separate from nature it may give way to
some alien species being able to thrive
where they would not normally thrive in
nature.



http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/08/06/livingmachines-turning-wastewater-clean-with-plants/
http://images.google.com/images?rlz=1T4DMUS_enUS
265US266&q=living+machine&um=1&ie=UTF8&ei=Mqi6S5qGOIL_8Aby8Py5CA&sa=X&oi=image_re
sult_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CB4QsAQwAw
http://toddecological.com/eco-machines/