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ecological design

Case Study: East and West House

East House and West House are two single-family dwellings, each roughly 70m2 in floor area with an additional semi-enclosed porch area of a further 70m2. They are located in a small village in eastern Cantabria. They were built during 2015-18, with a low cost and low environmental impact, using principally local and natural materials and volunteer labour. Both houses have a timber frame built with locally sourced eucalyptus timber, harvested less than 2km from the… Read More »Case Study: East and West House

Ecological Blackwater Treatment

Despite the availability of alternatives like dry composting toilets and greywater separation, wastewater continues to be a huge global problem. The amount produced, as well the diversity of contaminants, is on the rise. But wastewater from toilets is comparatively easy to treat using ecological methods. One method is aerobic composting, in which the solids are retained in a chamber where they are composted in the presence of air. This can be done using compost worms,… Read More »Ecological Blackwater Treatment

Dry Composting Toilets

As we learned in the previous post on greywater, blackwater—that is, wastewater from toilets—contains far more contaminants than greywater (from other domestic sources), and is correspondingly more hazardous, and more expensive to treat.  And untreated sewage is a big health problem in many places around the world. But is all this sewage really necessary?   Normal flush toilets add human waste to clean fresh water, before flushing the mixture away into the sewers. In essence,… Read More »Dry Composting Toilets

Ecological Greywater Recycling

Wastewater treatment is an area where simple, natural solutions are often not just cheaper, but more effective, than complicated technological ones. As fresh clean water becomes scarcer, recycling wastewater makes more and more sense.

Rainwater Harvesting

Those of us who live in wet countries often take the rain for granted and even grumble about it, but in dry climates and those with seasonal rainfall, lack of rain has always been a serious problem. And now, with climate change accelerating, drought is more and more common even in regions that once had dependable rain; while rainfall is becoming more intense and irregular, leading to flooding and soil erosion. But the good news… Read More »Rainwater Harvesting

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