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Colin Lennox, CEO of Settling Seas, a subsidiary of EcoIslands LLC, joins us to talk about using biological processes for breaking down waste to produce fresh drinking water and reclaim resources on the high seas.
Settling Seas’ wetlands-in-a-box, called Self-Organizing Wetland Bioreactors (SOWBs) function as the ecological hub for seasteads of any size. They up-cycle human, food, and crop waste in saline and/or sweetwater wetland reactors, capturing precious iron, manganese, nitrogen, and methane for aquaponics, energy, and other in-situ resource utilization (ISRU).
Unlike on land where nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are the limiting nutrients to plant growth, ocean ecosystems are limited by the lack of metals. The SOWBs are essentially the keystone to ocean permaculture, capturing and concentrating scarce resources into a permanent living, mobile ecosystem.
Join us as we talk about how seasteads may clean the surrounding waters, taking lessons from Colin’s experience working with mushroom farm wastewater cycling and coal mining reclamation.
Audio editing by Lyka Sherylle Mae Rambac.
Links
- Phillips Wastewater Treatment Process Diagram
- Colin’s presentation on Wetland Cycling from February 2022
- EcoIslands, LLC
- draw.io – free tool for planning out your water system
