No businessperson wants to worry about poop. Out of all the things entrepreneurs and startups think about, poop’s impact on the environment is often at the bottom of the list, because it’s not a sexy or exciting topic. Commercial septic tanks and wastewater reduction just aren’t business buzzwords in the same way that disruptive innovation or work-life balance are.
So, while many businesses are rightly concerned by the impact they have on the environment, not enough businesses are considering the issue of poop pollution. However, they really should be, and here are a few reasons why.
1. The Wastewater The Average Business Produces Is Astronomical
The maths don’t lie. The average person produces 158 litres of wastewater a day. It sounds like a lot until you consider how that figure is calculated. When you add up the sum total of all of the wastewater produced by pulling the flush, washing your hands, washing your clothes, taking a shower, cleaning the dishes, or anything else, 158 litres makes sense.
The average person spends about 22% of their week at work, or 37.4 hours a week, so we can assume that the average person produces 34.76 litres of wastewater at work. If you have a business of 150 people (the magic number for businesses), that means your business produces 5,214 litres of wastewater a day. In two-and-a-half months, that would be enough water to fill a 25-metre swimming pool.
If you have 150 staff members, your workplace could fill a 25 x 10 x 1.5 metre swimming pool with its wastewater in just two-and-a-half months.
2. Wastewater Can And Should Be Reduced
If you have more than 150 people at your company or if your employees spend more than seven hours a day at your workplace on average, that figure could be higher. The higher the figure is, the bigger your responsibility should be to reduce it.
By making sure that your staff practice responsible water use, you can lessen the impact of your business on the environment.
3. Only Certain Kinds of Wastewater Are Treatable
Many economically developed cities and countries around the world have wastewater treatment facilities that allow the wastewater to be reintroduced to the ecosystem. Eventually, this water can once again become drinking water. It’s an elegant system, but it’s not foolproof.
To quote one expert, “toilet paper and what comes out of you” are the only things that should be flushed down the toilet. If you flush anything else, you run the risk of lessening the impact of wastewater treatment. Like so much else in eco-friendly business practice, it’s a matter of doing your small bit every day to help the whole system.
Microbeads are a perfect example of something which shouldn’t be flushed down the toilet, which shouldn’t be part of your wastewater, but which is often part of people’s wastewater. It’s one of the biggest issues in wastewater treatment, yet only a handful of countries have actually banned microbeads.
If you are operating in a country in which microbeads aren’t banned, make a stance and ban them from your business in order to create more treatable wastewater.
4. Businesses in Rural Areas Need Commercial Septic Tanks
It’s not enough to assume that your business is connected to a public sewer system. 25% of American buildings, 35% of Irish buildings, 35% of Turkish buildings and 22% of Japanese buildings are not connected to a public sewer system.
As such, for the businesses in rural areas which aren’t connected to the main sewage system, a commercial septic tank is an absolute must. Indeed, in the UK, Ireland, the US, Canada and most other countries, it’s a legal requirement.
What’s more, the bigger your business, the bigger a septic tank you’ll need. A commercial septic tank needs to be incredibly strong and it needs to have capacity enough to deal with your business as it grows.
No business should cut corners when it comes to their commercial septic tank. No business should underestimate the size and strength they will need when it comes to their commercial septic tank. The result of doing so would be far from pleasant.
