When Industry Pollutes Water, Nature Can Help Clean Up The Problem.

When Industry Pollutes Water, Nature Can Help Clean Up The Problem.
When a company causes water pollution, it can face heavy fines. Yet there are low cost, ways for businesses to clean up dirty water before sending it into a sewer or the ground. The process is effective and environmentally sound because it uses nature to scrub nature.
- By Isaac Rudik

Not only is the world starting to slowly run out of fresh water, the water that’s available for drinking, washing and other sanitary uses is increasingly polluted and dirty. Municipalities and regions are finding growing pressure being put on their waste water treatment facilities thanks to a combination of manufacturing, agriculture, food processing, soft drink bottling and the general growth in the number of people consuming water.

Even more distressing is that contaminated water is seeping into aquifers and other sources of fresh water.

Scrubbing Bubbles

Companies need to clean contaminated water both for their own processes and before offloading it into the sewers. But it’s not necessary to install acres of costly equipment to do the clean up because nature provides biological products to do the work.

A partial list of available bio-based solutions includes:
· Aqua-One™ eliminates or prevents the most common problems associated with pond and aquarium water quality.
· Bio-One™ cleans up specific hydrocarbon and hydrocarbon-related contaminants.
· Hydro-One Blue™ degrades components in food processing, textile, pulp, paper, wood processing, municipal waste treatment systems, lagoons, RVs, and septic tank wastewater.
· MicroClean-One™ removes grease, oil, or other hydrocarbon surface contamination.
· Safe-One™ reduces odours in feed lot, dairy, swine, and poultry waste treatment processes.
· GreaseClean-One™ digests grease, oil, or other food wastes in pipes, traps, sewers and lift stations.
· Terra-One™ stimulates plant root growth and reduces thatch.

Using biological decontamination products such as these reduces water and operating costs while using a natural “scrubbing bubble” to save the environment and avoid costly clean-ups.

Widespread Problem

A substantial portion of waste entering our water comes from sources such as industrial discharge pipes and municipal sewer outlets or pollutants carried in the atmosphere. Up to 54% of the 170 direct dischargers in Ontario exceed their allowed monthly pollution limits.

Moreover, many industries use municipal sewers and treatment facilities to deal with wastewater and this can overwhelm treatment facilities. This is one of the most serious problems facing the municipal water industry. Worse, municipal facilities may not treat toxic industrial contaminants and it is almost impossible to police sewage discharges.

When dirty water contamination is left for a government facility to “clean up,” large amounts of water are wasted. With ever tighter legislation and the need to save costs cleaning it by yourself is much cheaper and less risky.

Fortunately, new bio-technology makes it easier and cheaper for companies to manage potential problems with bad water damaging the environment while reducing own operating costs.




Isaac Rudik is a compliance consultant with Compliance Solutions Canada Inc., Canada’s largest provider of health, safety and environmental compliance solutions to industrial, institutional and government facilities.

E-mail Isaac at irudik@csc-inc.ca or phone him at 905-761-5354.