School installs sewerage treatment and disposal system

Learning effluent doesn't need to go to waste

Over the 2005/2006 Christmas school holiday break, GBG successfully installed the KEWT system at the Greenbank Preschool and Greenbank State School site. With approximately 1000 students and almost 100 teachers and staff, this school had no sewerage and relied on regular 'pump outs' to dump the waste at the nearest sewerage treatment plant (STP) for treatment to an acceptable standard before being released back into our waterways.

The staff at Greenbank lobbied hard for the government to allow the KEWT system to be installed, not only for the cost savings, but as an investment in the school's environmental and educational future.

The annual cost of pump outs (approximately $85,000) will be recouped within four years. More than 240 plants and shrubs have been planted at the school to feed the system.

In addition, GBG planted 200 cabinet timbers as a buffer between the top and bottom ovals and also for future harvesting, using approximately 30% of the recycled water through subsurface drip.

Probably the most rewarding outcome from the installation of the KEWT system has been the educational value.

In conjunction with staff at Greenbank State School and Central Queensland University, GBG wrote a curriculum for the students to learn more about recycling waste.

The curriculum written for primary school students explains the workings and benefits to the environment of the school's sewerage treatment and disposal system. Everybody involved in the Greenbank experience now understands that effluent doesn't need to be tagged as 'waste'.

Just 15 months after being commissioned, the KEWT system at Greenbank School is performing well with healthy gardens and a booming timber crop. All this in a time of drought and Level 5 water restrictions.