Green Living
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Toilet vs. trash?
I haven't gotten into using reusable cloth tissues. I usually try to blow my nose on the smallest amount of toilet paper possible (well, like now when I have a clear runny nose from allergies.. not when I have a bad cold during the wintertime type of thing!).
Anyway, I think you guys might have discussed this before.. but is it better to toss it in the trash, or the toilet? I obviously would not flush it until someone used the toilet.
Re: Toilet vs. trash?
Do you compost? Into the compost would be the best choice.
Then I'd say toilet, as it will be processed at the waste treatment plant and end up in the sludge (effectively, compost, but less efficiently than putting it there in the first place).
Last would be landfill. There, it is unlikely to break down at all.
Depends what is done with your sewage when you get your tank pumped. I would say, as a rule, cities are held to higher treatment standards the larger they are. I'm not really sure what happens to tanked and pumped sewage (and I should know... my aunt and uncle own a pump truck).
I thought the sludge ended up in landfills once it dried? I'm kind of afraid to Google it...
ETA: Okay, I Googled and found this from PBS:
Sludges from wastewater and water treatment facilities are typically put in a landfill or applied to farmland reclamation sites, although some sewage sludge is heat treated and reused as compost. A little more than 50 percent of the sewage sludge produced by the more than 16,000 municipal wastewater treatment plants in the U.S. is applied to land, mainly to farmland, as a soil conditioner and fertilizer.
Yeah, I know my city applies it to land and does not landfill sludge.
It must vary by location.
I design septic systems and larger wastewater treatment systems. If you are on a septic system I would compost or throw tissue (being used to blow your nose) in the trash. Although the tissues will break down in your septic tank it will cause solids to accumulate more quickly resulting in pumping your tank more often. Of course if you are using a small amount of tissue this may not matter.
Septic tank sludge is pumped and either land applied or taken to a municipal sewage treatment plant. Typically when it is land applied it must be screened first to remove plastics (which you shouldn't but down you drain to your septic tank anyway).
If you are on city sewer it would still be best not to throw trash in your toilet. Treating wastewater is really expensive for municipalities and by adding more waste to the process it adds more cost and chemicals.