The Vetiver Network International

Domestic Effluent

Vetiver System for treating domestic generated effluent.

This is possible at various scales and various levels of complexity.

Photo 1 The simplest application of vetiver is planting around a tertiary sewage system lagoon and adding some vetiver pontoons. The hedges keep detritus out of the ponds, reduces pond leaching, stabilizes the pond bank, and provides habitat for wildlife – Pacific University, Papua New Guinea – (Robinson Vanoh)
Photo 2 A Sewage Treatment Pilot Project with VGT in Caixin Village, Puding County, Guizhou Province, Southwest China. Complete sewage system servicing a small village in southwest China with Vetiver as a key component. Presentation by Ziyuan Feng, Hanping Xia, and Yuan Xiong. Demand for this type of vetiver applications is increasing in China.
Photo 3 Watts Bridge (Australia) airfield Vetiver System effluent treatment. This is an update of a previous posting. Additionally, we provide a short report from Veticon Consulting on the most recent analysis of effluent treatment. The data indicate that when properly applied the Vetiver System is very effective in the disposal of the effluent discharged from sewage system. The success of this project depends very much on the proper implementation and subsequent management of the site.
Photo 4 At the bottom end of the scale vetiver can be used to stabilize the walls of pit latrines (design and concept Owen Lee) and at the same time reduce the leachate flow from the latrine and provide privacy to the user.
Photo 5 – A working vetiver latrine in Haiti (Roger Geitzen)

AUSTRALIA – BOONAH WASTEWATER TREATMENT USING VETIVER

A short update from Paul Truong of photos (2013) of Vetiver planted in 2011 for the treatment of sewage effluent. You can find earlier information at: https://www.vetiver.org/AUS_boonah%20waste..pdf
From Bio Clean Environmental Services – California. A project at Oceanside, California to treat wash down water from a harbor boat wash site, along with many little sewer spills coming from RVs on a continuous basis. It’s a very dirty site. Over 4000 pounds of oil laden sediment was removed from the pre-treatment chamber in the last two years. The system treats 2,000 to 8,000 gallons of water every day. Vetiver Grass was chosen because it has the ability to grow in saline water and the ability to deal with high pollutant loads, both as feature of the site.
Vetiver was a great choice and a real success story. see details and data and field report (best).