The Alternative

The Massachusetts Alternative Septic System Test Center (MASSTC) is a program of the

Barnstable County Department of Health and Environment

Phasing Out Wellfleet's Aging Septic Systems

According to an article in the Cape Cod Times last week, Wellfleet property owners with cesspools, those who plan to sell, those who are expanding living space or increasing septic flow will need to upgrade their Title 5 septic systems to ones that do a better job scrubbing pollutants.

"Otherwise, property owners who fall into the above categories will need to replace their septic systems with “best available nitrogen reducing technology.” Those systems, referred to in Wellfleet documents as 'enhanced innovative alternative septic systems', can reduce nitrogen loads by up to 70%.

What's SUP? Managing Cape Cod’s I/A Program

Barnstable County’s Septic Utility Program (SUP) was created to provide comprehensive management services for Innovative/Alternative (I/A) septic systems across Cape Cod.

Think of it as a utility like NSTAR or National Grid that manages electricity and gas, but in the case of SUP, it manages your I/A septic system.

SUP Program Manager David Iorio Izzo says as a Responsible Management Entity (RME), SUP can support both municipalities and homeowners by overseeing system installation, maintenance, and long-term performance. 

"Our goal is to protect public health and the environment while ensuring these advanced systems operate effectively and affordably for years to come. By streamlining system management, we help communities reduce costs and improve water quality across the region."

New Composting Toilets at MASSTC

We're getting our Clean Water Center ready for you to come for a visit!

The two bathrooms in our new space are outfitted with Jets vacuum flushed toilets that connect to these three blue composting containers (see image) made by Advanced Composting Systems.

Everything flushed into these Phoenix compost toilet systems (poop, pee, paper and about 0.7 liter of water per flush), will mix into a bed of wood shavings and go through a high temperature composting process. A key feature of these units is their active ventilation system that provides oxygen to the microbes doing the work and assuring that odors are directed through vents above the building roof.

After at least a year of composting, finished material is removed through the lower access ports and applied to garden beds as a nutrient rich soil amendment.

Interested in scheduling a spring tour to see these live? Contact us through the link below.

How the Victorian Era's 'Night Soil Men' Kept London From Going to Waste

According to Mental Floss, In overcrowded London in the 1840s, the lack of indoor plumbing and wastewater treatment systems meant that literal tons of poop accrued, "prompting disease and olfactory offense."

Enter the heroic "London Night Men" or "Night Soil Men."

"While the queen was kept at a distance from the build-up at Windsor, a typical middle-class family might have to contend with multiple poop ditches, each overstuffed with non-diluted waste. In all of London, 200,000 cesspools festered. One sanitation report for Buckingham Palace in the 1840s was so damning it was suppressed by officials."

From its fashion and art to its architecture and excess, the Victorian era—a period covering Queen Victoria’s 64-year reign, from 1837 to 1901—is among the most romanticized ages in world history. But in reality, the period was filthy in ways that seem incompatible with the affluence we now associate with it.

Be grateful we have choices to handle our waste today!

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