GOING WITH THE FLOW
Cartoon characters explore the urban water cycle.
Did you brush your teeth today? Wash your hands? Flush your toilet? Where did the water you used go?
ACAP staff have the privilege of discussing environmental issues with the island’s children. When we ask local kids where water goes when it leaves their homes they have two answers: “the sewers” and “the ocean.” And they’re both right.
One of our tools for explaining the human impact on the urban water cycle is the super hero duo, Alex and Sadie, The Wastewater Warders. These characters gained the power to shrink and grow during a science fair experiment gone wrong. They use these special shrinking powers to help us gain a fresh perspective on the relationship between our habits at home and our environment.
Of the wastewater generated in the CBRM – that’s any water affected by humans from rooftop runoff through to our kitchen and bathroom drains – only about 20 per cent is treated. That means it’s cleaned up at the wastewater treatment plant before it’s released back out into nature.
There are construction plans underway to build more treatment infrastructure in our communities but currently around 80 per cent of wastewater is flowing from our homes directly into our beloved waterways.
So you are part of an urban water cycle. The water that runs through your home that you touch every day comes from somewhere and goes somewhere. What sort of impact do you leave on the water cycle? In a world full of unflushable wipes branded and sold as “flushable” and confusion about storm water runoff, it can be hard to tell.
Follow the Wastewater Warders through our local urban water cycle in a comic strip appearing for the next five weeks in the Cape Breton Post’s Community Section to learn more about your direct and often un-thought about relationship with our environment.