what happens to your poops when you flush them?

Question

I've always wondered where our poops go and what happens to them after they are flushed.

Answer 1

Well, this depends on whether you are hooked up to a septic tank, or to a sewage line.

If you have a septic tank, it sits in a pit, and decomposes for a while, after which time a truck pumps it all out and... I dunno. I suppose they pump their truck out into the sewage system eventually.

If you have a sewage line, it drains through the sewers for miles. Bacteria decomposes it more rapidly thanks to the fresh air, insects eat the bacteria, rats eat the insects, and rumor has it that alligators eat the rats. More likely some people's pet fish that didn't quite die may survive in this filth as well.

While sloshing around in the sewer, it usually mixes with other unsavory liquids: stuff from garbage disposals, cleaning solutions, and sometimes grease dumped there by restaurants. All of this mixes together into a nasty sort of soup, which certain animals (as mentioned earlier) can live in.

Eventually, it reaches a sewage treatment plant... or a water purification plant. Different ones work slightly differently.

Most have certain chemical filters to get the cleaning solutions out. Some run the stuff through sand to filter out large debris that accidentally gets flushed, and some have a sort of whirlpool device to separate oily stuff from the rest of the water. A few have special gas bells, to trap the methane produced by bacteria in the water, and this can be burned to run generators.

Once this is done, the remaining material is put through a series of holding ponds, which clear out the stuff in various ways.

Usually, there are several large ponds, with fountains, that circulate the nasty water, allowing fumes to be released, and giving more oxygen to the bacteria that break stuff down.

Poop contains a lot of nitrogen compounds, and these ponds are mainly interested in removing this from the water in various ways. Chief among them is the use of bacteria, which can transform the material into less toxic nitrogen compounds, or even into nitrogen gas. Plants are also used, to fix the nitrogen into their cellular components, where it can be hauled off more easily.

Many of these ponds are colonized with certain creatures to help the process. Tubifex worms, and various snails will mix the debris which falls to the water, thus keeping more of the material in suspension for bacteria to colonize. Some of the snails that do this can carry parasites that are harmful to humans, so apple snails are often introduced to help keep the population of dangerous snails down.

Due to the risk of Mosquitos colonizing standing water, various fish that eat mosquito larvae may be introduced with more or less success.

Numerous plants are also used to absorb the nitrogen from the water. Numerous species of algae occur naturally. Other free floating plants are often used as well. Duckweed, fairy moss, butterfly fern, water lettuce, and water hyacinth are popular. Many species of elodea are also sometimes used, but are not as useful, as they are entirely submerged, and cannot pass oxygen deeper into the water.

Eventually, the waste material is made to flow over deep pits, and the remaining solid material settles out. This stuff, once made of human poo, is often sold as fertilizer for fruit orchards, decorative plants, or to foreign nations.

The remaining water is then usually passed through activated charcoal, or ozone, and then through clay to filter out other impurities. It may then be released into a river or bog, or undergo further purification, and chlorination before being put back into the city's water mains as drinking water.

Answer 2

It flushes down pipes into a sewer which is a large underground series of tunnel where all wastes (poop and pee) are stored and then in 99% of cases go into a water treatment facility where ultra violet lights kill the bacteria (germs) and send it through a filter. this water then comes out pure and as if it were never waste (poop and pee) ever before all poop becomes so soft it gets mixed in with the water

Answer 3

If you are really serious--the City Sanitation Department in the town you live in would no doubt explain it to you in detail.

Answer 4

They go to the sewer then the treatment plan and they burn it

Answer 5

I collect them to use in my restuarant.

Answer 6

it goes to a processing plant.turned into furtilizer and the rest is @#$%%^$#$ canned.

Answer 7

they went to their home