I have lived on many camps in many different countries and often had responsibility for design, construction and operation of waste management facilities and wastewater treatment. In remote, economically developing countries this can be a real challenge. The camp I am on now in East Africa is well designed, with a well functioning sewage system and effluent polishing reed bed, which even has banana and other plants established in it.
It is nice to see a well run effluent system, as over the years I have worked on many designs:
- initially for ecological enhancement;
- then I designed reed beds, as Project Manager, for highway run-off for the National Rivers Authority R&D programme, ca. 20 years ago, but as I went overseas to work, the ensuing NRA publication did not have my name on it, which was a pity!;
- for several camps in the Caucasus, then West African countries i designed effluent polishing reed beds to reduce the final nutrient loading, as over the years I often found that the stated treatment capacity of the procured system was often not delivered and/or the cleaning regime lead to damage to the microbes in the facility.
Turning to solid waste; I spent huge amounts of time on camps designing solid waste separation, handling and treatment systems, including procuring large industrial incinerators for hazardous waste, medical waste and food-contaminated plastics. It is good to see on this camp the waste segregation facilities appear to work well, especially with regards to the food waste, ink cartridges and batteries.
