‘Love your Loo’? Lifting the Lid in Wincanton
As a resident of Wincanton I’ve always felt a need to know all about the town, its history, its people, its facilities, its good points, its weak points and all those other facts that most other folk wouldn’t care about. This need ‘to know’, led me to the town’s sewage treatment works, potentially not a pleasant place to visit but just think about the consequences if it wasn’t there – images of a country before flushing toilets, sanitation and an understanding of disease, learnt through school history lessons spring to mind.
So, when Wessex Water put out an open invitation to visit ‘your local sewage works’, I was first in the cue. Not wishing to miss the opportunity to share this valuable learning lesson with someone I invited my 11 year old daughter, Hannah, to join me. You can imagine her reaction but like any other youngster with a thirst for knowledge she accepted my invitation.
As one of the town’s river clear-up volunteers (C.A.T.C.H.), I was also interested to learn about any impact the site might have on the river.
The works are located to the south of the town just beyond the A303 and just off Moor Lane; it’s an older plant and not normally open to the public for the obvious reason. The first thing we noticed as we approached was how neat and tidy the site was. Yes there was a slight ‘twang’, in the air but this is something you get familiar with living in a rural area.
We were given a very warm welcome and handed an information booklet on the works. At this point I started to think that, like most of us, when I flush that’s it, not my problem. But as we continued my thoughts began to change and our visit to a place like the town’s sewage treatment works made me think beyond a point you wouldn’t normally want to go.
The information booklet informed us that the works takes sewage from a population of up to 7500 living in or visiting the town and its surrounding villages. On average two million litres of sewage flows into the works every day and this figure can increase to six million in wet weather.
We were guided around the site by a team passionate about their work and although this is an older site it soon became apparent that there is a structure of modern technology in place to monitor all the workings of the site on a 24 hour basis. What was very apparent was the amount of ‘other’, material the site has to deal with that really shouldn’t be going down the toilet. I was already aware of the problem of toilet wipes, many do not break down and create another man-made material which will end up in landfill polluting our planet, but the list of other items was mind blowing.
From the point of view of the river everything looks fine. I was informed that the plant poses no threat to the river and even though the final treated water from the plant is discharged into it, there is no threat. This was endorsed by the fact that even the rain water that falls on the road around the site is collected and treated to avoid pollution, and by the additional provision of a man made lagoon to ensure the quality of water flowing into the river is safe. The abundance of wildlife in and around the lagoon certainly helped to demonstrate the quality of the water.
Through this article both Hannah and myself would like to thank Wessex Water for their friendly and informative tour and we’d like you all to visit their website and learn more about what we can do to cut down on our waste and look after our planet.
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Reply #1 on : Tue August 12, 2014, 23:48:32
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