(From a comment I made on Facebook):
Many aquatic plants could probably withstand and process/purify level 5
municipal sewage mixed with stormwater (household, commercial waste plus
runoff water from streets, roadsides (highways), parking lots, etc.). At
least they could start the purification process reducing the effluent
from level 5 to something lower. Then the effluent can be processed by
progressively more aggressive biological systems known as living
machines and constructed wetlands. At some point this purified or
semipurified water could be made suitable for use in a Green Cooling
System. I see this GCS as essentially a "section of natural forest with
complete integrated functional ecosystem" installed on a rooftop.
i.e. a glorified "swamp cooler" that uses dewatered air chilled in a
machine that circulates that air through chambers cooled by evaporating
water (high pressure spray). A green system could simply use water in
radiators installed in a building's living space that cool instead of
heat in summer and heat instead of cool in winter, obtaining heated
water from solar collectors. The Green Cooler would consist of an
ecologically appropriate multi layered simulated forest
complete with fountains, waterfalls and rock-embedded stream courses
(watercourses) allowing the water to cool and purify as it is first
exposed to the sun then watercourses wherein temperature would be
reduced through contact with stones embedded in the bottom and sides of
the streams and along the waterfall then become further cooled and
purified as it flows over and through plant ecosystems and biologically
active soil to finally filter through a deep layered bed of stone,
gravel, sand and bioactive aerobic fine soil (siltation pond fines
aggregate, 100 mesh to 300 mesh) to finally be captured in a catchment
for filtering an pumping throughout the pipes leading to the radiators
in all the living space. Small, efficient, low pressure "whisper" fans
powered by small individual solar photovoltaic collectors mounted in a
room's windows connected to a small battery, could circulate air through
the radiator to cool or heat a room's complete interior.
Talk about stacked functions! Same system provides heat in winter and
cooling in summer with the added benefit of becoming part of a city's
public park system providing citizens with a prime ecotourism site
and (fourth function) an educational site for students on any level and
especially those participating in curricula that includes architecture,
green building (contractors), landscape architecture,
planning and design/construction (three different professions),
urban gardeners, permaculturists and ecology.
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