Biolytix Sewerage Wins “the Asian Innovation Award 2007”

The Biolytix Sewage Treatment System won the prestigious “Asian Innovation Award 2007”, sponsored by the Wall street Journal
(Asia). It was tough competition, with 260 entries from 16 countries
throughout Asia-Pacific, including Microsoft, IBM and Shell. The judges
were delighted with the energy savings and vision of Biolytix (Australia), and said the decision was unanimous.
The Biolytix inventor, Dean Cameron, is fanatically opposed to waste.
12 years ago he set out to design out the wasteful components of
sewerage. After investing $4M in research and development, Biolytix
achieved a worldwide breakthrough: high energy blowers – gone; need
for 4 services a year – gone (only needs one); and need for
chlorine…gone. Of the 16 systems researched, the Biolytix system uses
less than 90% energy than all of them.
How did Dean make the breakthrough?While other scientists were studying oxygen diffusion into wastewater in their laboratories, ecologist and scientist Dean was out in the paddock getting dirty. He was using
“biomimicry” - a science that studies nature’s models and then imitates these to make human lifestyles more sustainable.
“I was convinced that the conventional, high-energy aquatic sewage systems were based on a misunderstanding of natural breakdown processes” says Dean. “They used a lot of energy to run. This didn’t make sense because there’s a lot of energy in the waste itself, which led me to thinking, “Why can’t we harness that?” It all snowballed from there.”
The Biolytix is essentially an engineered ecosystem in a tank. It is suitable for domestic use, as well as scaled up for commercial
applications and networked for housing developments and whole towns (Biowater). Biowater irrigates both the household garden directly and excess water can be taken off-site for parks, golf courses etc. It can save up to 50% on costs and as it can be expanded incrementally, there are no large upfront costs. A developer’s dream.