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permaculture - plant beds for treatment of rinse water from metal sculpture studio

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  • From: "Catherine Jo Morgan" <cjmorgan@hemc.net>
  • To: permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: plant beds for treatment of rinse water from metal sculpture studio
  • Date: Sat, 14 Oct 2000 13:50:12 -0400


I'm looking for advice on how to use plants to clean rinse water of
various VOCs like various glycol ethers, also sometimes very alkaline
metal cleaners, other times acidic zinc/phosphoric acid metal cleaners.
All the materials are waterbased, and the rinse water has a pretty low
concentration of the materials. It seems possible that the right
selection of plants, in some kind of special treatment area, could clean
the water from my studio before it reaches groundwater.

I'm a sculptor, making iron and mixed media bowls. I'm concerned about
how to treat the rinse water from cleaning the iron and from washing paint
brushes. I'm using the least toxic materials I can find. Even so, there
are chemicals I use that I'd rather not drink. My studio is about 35 feet
uphill from our well. I have no septic tank, just pour rinse water into
5-gallon buckets. I generate perhaps 2 to 4 gallons of rinse water a day,
so I could carry it to a water treatment system a hundred feet or more
from the well - if I had one.

I'm located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, in northeast Georgia.
First frost is usually mid-October, last frost usually early to mid-April.
The land here is acidic, clay, covered with mostly hardwoods, some pine,
with light undergrowth. Not much of the land is cleared, and most of that
is under the electricity lines. But if sunshine is necessary, I could
probably locate the treatment area in a sunny area. There's just a lot
more shady woods to choose from.

I'd greatly appreciate information and leads on how to set up such a
system, what to consider in designing it, what plants to use, etc. All
help will be much appreciated.




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