Low cost ‘Poo-Gloos’ can clean sewage effectively

WASHINGTON - Low cost igloo-shaped devices nicknamed ‘Poo-Gloos’ can clean up sewage just as effectively as multimillion-dollar treatment facilities.

Kraig Johnson and his team developed the Poo-Gloo when he worked as a research assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Utah.

The Poo-Gloo provides a large surface area on which bacteria can grow, providing the microbes with air and a dark environment so they consume wastewater pollutants continuously with minimal competition from algae, according to a Wastewater Compliance Systems statement in the US.

Wastewater treatment in small, rural communities is an important and challenging engineering task. Proper treatment includes disinfection and the removal of unwanted pollutants.

Most rural communities rely on wastewater lagoons as their primary method of treatment because they are simple and inexpensive to operate.

Lagoons are large ponds in which sewage is held for a month to a year so that solids settle and sunlight, bacteria, wind and other natural processes clean the water, sometimes with the help of aeration.

“The results of this study show that it is possible to save communities with existing lagoon systems hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, by retrofitting their existing wastewater treatment facilities with Poo-Gloos,” says Fred Jaeger.

Jaeger is the chief executive officer of Wastewater Compliance Systems which sells the Poo-Gloo under the name Bio-Dome.

Johnson, chief technology officer at Wastewater Systems, will present the study Jan 13 in Miami.