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Protect Your Septic System
Enjoy!
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Don’t Put These Products In Your Septic System
We learned quite a bit about the threat septic systems create to the health of our rivers and bays during SRA’s Educational Series last Wednesday. For starters, septic systems are a primary source of nitrogen pollution in the Severn River, its tributaries and the Chesapeake Bay.
Reason: Traditional septic systems don’t remove any of the nitrogen flushed down our toilets.
Our guest speaker last week, Anne Arundel County Health Department’s Rick Piluk, noted that by itself, nitrogen in drinking water turns into nitrates that can disrupt the hormonal development of babies and young children.
The pollution threat gets even worse when nitrogen combines with phosphorus. This combination creates a power-packed pollution problem – algae blooms, dead zones and oxygen depletion. This triple whammy kills fish, crab and oyster populations and contributes to the ‘No Swimming’ warnings the county has to post all too often.
Solution: Enhanced nitrogen removal systems that can capture up to 50% of the nitrogen. One study reports an average removal of 51% to 64%.
Thanks to the flush tax, the county offers grants to cover the cost of the new septic systems and their installation, which can run from $10,000 to $15,000. These grants are available to homeowners making less than $300,000 a year.
Piluk also pointed out that most liquid fabric softeners (Downey and Snuggle, for example) shorten the life of septic systems, clog up dry wells and drain fields, and interfere with nitrogen removal.
Septic systems depend on bacteria to break down human waste, but this bacterial action is killed off by all sorts of common household products that don’t belong in a septic system: drain cleaners, bug sprays, personal care products, disinfectants and bleach. They all kill off the bacteria in your septic system that breaks down human waste. Even food waste is a no-no for septic systems. Remove the garbage disposal and compost that food waste.
Some good news: Using half the amount of detergent used to wash clothes and replacing it with baking soda produces not only whiter whites and brighter colors, it also helps protect the environment and extend the life of your septic system.
Finally, when it comes to actual cleaning, less is more, especially when it comes to soapy bubbles. The more bubbles you see, the worse it is for your septic field and the environment. The bubbles gum up septic systems and drain fields with a thick black residue. Why? Because in many liquid detergents (Tide for example), the bubbles are created by adding chemicals to create the false impression of cleaning action.
An EPA website offers a variety of products and ideas for switching to safer products.
Go to: http://www2.epa.gov/saferchoice
