The Water Environment Project Book

The Water Environment Project Book This book belongs to: Name

...... Class

...... Why does water need to be treated? Where doesWaste our water Water come from? Science Once upon a time, people had to fetch their water in buckets from pumps, wells, rivers or streams. Today, your water reaches your home through a big Water makes up 80% of To make your water safe to drink. Yorkshire Water our brains so it’s important treats it at over 55 water treatment works. Here’s how; network of pipes, treatment plants and pumping that we drink enough to stations known as the Yorkshire Grid. be able to concentrate – especially in class! Yorkshire Water makes sure there’s enough water Screening Flocculation Clarifi cation for us to use whenever we need it by using the The water passes Chemicals are added to act To remove the fl oc, air following resources: through a huge like a magnet for “baddies’ is bubbled through the metal strainer (called like dirt and dangerous tanks to make the fl oc a “screen”) to germs (called “bacteria”). fl oat to the surface, Reservoirs – these are artifi cial lakes made by building a wall, remove things like The chemicals form a sort where it is scraped off. called a dam, across a valley to catch the water which drains off leaves and twigs. of jelly (called “fl oc”). the surrounding hills.

Rivers – river water is safe to drink once it’s been treated. The main rivers used by Yorkshire Water are the Wharfe, Esk, Ure, Hull, Ouse and Derwent. Granular Activated Carbon Ozone tank Filtration Used to remove the “baddies” Ozone is a gas The water is passed killed by the ozone gas, as well which is a powerful through fi lters fi lled Boreholes and springs – A borehole as traces of metals such as disinfectant. It is with sand to remove is a huge well which lets Yorkshire manganese, which can also bubbled through any last bits of fl oc. Water get water from deep be found in the water. the water to kill any ·WHITBY underground. There are remaining “baddies”. boreholes in many parts ·RICHMOND MAJOR DEMAND of Yorkshire, particularly AREAS SUPPLIED ·SCARBOROUGH ·LEYBURN R. SWALE FROM THE GRID the east. This water is NETWORK Chlorination R. WHARFE naturally fi ltered and R. OUSE ·MALTON The water then goes to an ·RIPON Chlorine is then added to the water. R. DERWENT underground storage area cleaned as it passes LOBWOOD MOOR This kills off any bugs that are in the HOLLINS R. HULL called a service reservoir ready through rocks and MONKTON pipework as the water travels from the ·SKIPTON to be piped to your home.

R. WHARFE water treatment works to your house. needs very little ELVINGTON TOPHILL treatment before it’s BRADFORD LOW LEEDS safe to be delivered LOFTSOME BRIDGE HULL to our homes. HALIFAX R. OUSE SELBY WAKEFIELD In 1854, Dr John Snow HUDDERSFIELD KEY RIVER INTAKES was the fi rst person to BARNSLEY On average, DONCASTER Investigate! link illness (cholera) with MAJOR PUMPING FROM STATIONS contaminated water. 45% of Yorkshire’s SEVERN SHEFFIELD/ROTHERHAM water comes from TRENT RESERVOIR GROUP Can you name the nearest river to your school? Use a A discovery which led to the reservoirs TREATED WATER TRANSMISSION map to fi nd out where it goes after it has passed your disinfection of water supplies. RAW WATER TRANSMISSION school. Does it join another river, or fl ow into the sea?

2 3 Make your own water fi lter

You will need What happens to the dirty water • A plastic bottle cut in half (ask an adult to do this) when it leaves your home?

• Napkins or paper towels The dirty water you pour or fl ush away has to be made clean • Gravel, sand and cotton balls for your fi lter again. Yorkshire Water does this at over 600 waste water treatment works. • Dirty water (You can make it by adding soil, food colouring, The water from your sink, bath or toilet pieces of paper, or tiny pieces of wood). goes into a pipe called a drain. All the drains in your neighbourhood join a What to do larger pipe called a sewer and a number 1. Put the top half of the bottle upside-down (like a funnel) of sewers then join together to form a inside the bottom half. The top half will be where you build trunk sewer. Sewers can be anything your fi lter; the bottom half will hold the fi ltered water. from 100mm to 5.5m wide! 2. Layer the fi lter materials inside the top half of the bottle. The waste water (or “sewage”) travels Think about what each material might remove from down the sewer to a treatment works, the dirty water and in what order you should layer where it is cleaned and returned to a the materials. stream or river to rejoin the water cycle. 3. Pour the dirty water through the fi lter. What does the fi ltered water look like? Cleaning the water is important for the environment too. (DON’T DRINK IT!) Untreated (or “raw”) sewage sometimes contains chemicals from farms and factories which can be harmful to 4. Take the fi lter apart and look at the different animals and plants. Raw sewage also layers. Can you tell what each material contains “baddie” compounds which removed from the water is? micro-organisms gobble up, and use Things to think about up all the oxygen in the water. Did you If untreated sewage gets into a river, know... • Wipe the bottle clean and try again. all the oxygen that plants and fi sh Try putting materials in different layers need to keep them alive or using different amounts of materials. would quickly be used up. Yorkshire Water have a network of • Can you think of any other materials around 20,000 you could use in your fi lter miles of underground to make it work pipes, collecting even better? waste water from Yorkshire’s homes! Pipeline puzzle Dave the plumber bought two pipes and a joint to fi x them together. He spent £3.30. A pipe costs twice as much as a joint. How much does a joint cost?

4 5 Can you fi nd the How is the used water made clean again? solutionWaste to this Water problem? Which substances dissolve in water and which are only suspended in it? If the substance has dissolved,Science the solution (the mixture of water Sewage contains both solids and liquids. The solids need removing and dissolved stuff) should look the same throughout. The particles and the liquid needs cleaning. Here’s how Yorkshire Water do it: will have broken up and will be spread evenly in the water. If the mixture stays cloudy, and the particles hang there and then settle to the bottom, you’ve made a “suspension” rather than a “solution”. Primary treatment Screening The sewage fl ows into You will need Screens (you’ve read about large tanks where most of them in the section on the remaining solids settle • 5 beakers water treatment) remove to the bottom. This is solids such as wood, rags called sewage “sludge”. • 1 teaspoon each of salt, fl our, and paper. baking powder, sugar and soil What to do 1. Fill the glasses with cold water. Secondary treatment 2. Stir a spoonful of salt into the fi rst glass. Final treatment “goodie” micro-organisms The cleaned sewage may feed on the “baddie” 3. Stir a spoonful of fl our into one glass, compounds in the water. baking powder into another, and so on. need to be put through a sand fi lter or a bed of The liquid sewage may be trickled over stones on which 4. Wait for a few minutes to see what happens. reeds. Zapping the sewage with ultra-violet light is the micro-organisms live, Things to think about another way of making or mixed with the micro- sure that any remaining organisms in a tank, in a It takes the poo of 100,000 • How can you clean up your fi ve samples of water? “baddies” are killed. soup-like mixture. Oxygen is people to generate 51kw of fed into the tank, so that the • Hint 1 – You’ve read about fi lters in the sections on electricity, enough for 500 “goodie” micro-organisms can water and sewage treatment. Which of your beakers light bulbs (source breathe. After this the sewage could be fi ltered? www.upd8.org.uk) fl ows into large tanks, to allow the solids to settle. • Hint 2 – You know that water evaporates from the oceans and falls back to Earth as rain. Seawater is salty, but rain isn’t. Does that give you a clue about getting the salt back out of your water sample? Water Waste Wordsearch B A D D I E S G E N S U S D I L O S A Y Find the following words: L B Z P E O S K C D Baddies Screens U B R O D F N Y A I U Between 70 and 75% Filter Sewage D L F I L T E R R of the earth’s surface is G E E S E W A G E Q Goodies Sludge E G Y X O I covered with water, however E S E N Liquid Solids L less than 1% of this water is S T A N K T M E N available for humans to use. Oxygen Tank L B A S C R E E N S

6 7 Where does the sludge go? During the sewage treatment process, the solids turn into sludge. This has to be disposed of in ways which won’t harm the environment. The ways used are: Agriculture Thickened sludge mixed with green waste can be sprayed Look after your sink and love your loo! onto farmers’ fi elds by a tanker to fertilise the soil. It’s a Every day people put the wrong things down toilets good source of nitrogen and phosphorus which plants and sinks. You wouldn’t believe what Yorkshire need to help them grow. Water fi nds in their sewers – nappies, false teeth Composting and even Christmas trees! Sludge is mixed with straw or wood chippings and stored While this may sound funny, the problems it can in heaps which are regularly turned by a machine for about cause are no laughing matter. These items 2 months. After this, it can be used for land reclamation. don’t dissolve and so can block the pipes Why not FEED THE BIRDS! Incineration and sewers. The dirty waste water then Get yourself a FREE Fat Bird. When sludge has a high content of metal it cannot be has to fi nd another way to escape. Ask a parent or carer to pour used as fertiliser. It has to be dried and then burned in Often it ends up fl ooding back out of the left over cooking fat, grease kitchen sinks, toilets or manholes in or oil into the tray to make a an incinerator. Some water companies now use their tasty treat for the birds! Visit incinerators to generate heat. the street. yorkshirewater.com/dirty In one year alone, to order yours! Energy Generation Yorkshire Water Sludge heated to high temperature and then have to clear Have you got the foggiest digested can release methane. This gas is collected 18,000 blockages in to produce electricity. The treated sludge is then Yorkshire’s sewers idea about FOG? used by farmers as fertiliser. Find out and write down some examples of where cooking fat, oils and grease (it’s easy to remember it as FOG!) come from......

8 9 Do you know your Do’s and Don’ts?

Have a read through the followingif you disagree. statements and tick Bin, recycle or tip? Do if you agree or Don’t Take up our ticklish tick-list challenge The best place for Here’s a long list of things which shouldn’t be put down the drain. leftover cooking fat is Sort them out and decide how they should be disposed of safely It’s okay to fl ush in a container in the by completing this chart. nappies down waste bin. the toilet. Put a tick in the right place to show how each item should be thrown-away safely.

It’s okay to fl ush Household Recycling Rubbish Composter wet wipes down rubbish bin centre tip the toilet. Do Don’t Do Leave the hot tap Floor/ Don’t running when baby wipes pouring cooking fat Do Don’t down the sink and it Stickers won’t get blocked. Nappies Leftover food should not be washed down Do Toys the sink. Don’t Paper/ Leftover cooking cardboard fat mixed with seeds Do Don’t makes a great meal Paint for garden birds. Plastic bags

Do Don’t Food waste Plasters

Always wash Cotton buds/ leftover food off Always put hair, wool plates into the sink. cotton wool and From over 18,000 cotton buds in sewer blockages in Hair the bin not down Yorkshire! 20% of these the loo. were caused by fat and Animal bedding Don’t 17% were created by Do discarded wipes and 10 Kitchen roll nappies! Do Don’t

10 11 Glossary Here you’ll fi nd explanations of some of the words and terms used in this booklet.

Agriculture Borehole Clarifi cation Composting Farming, cultivation A large well that allows Passing air through the Disposing of sludge by of the soil for crops Yorkshire Water to get water water to make the fl oc rise mixing it with straw or and animals from under the ground to the surface wood chippings

Floc Derwent Esk Evaporation When chemicals are One of the rivers that One of the rivers that The process by which added to the water dirt and supplies water for supplies water for water passes from a germs are trapped in a jelly Yorkshire Water Yorkshire Water liquid to a gas like substance called fl oc

Ouse Incineration L a n d fi l l Micro-organisms One of the rivers that A method of disposing of Disposing of sludge by A tiny single cell life-form supplies water for harmful sludge by burning fi lling areas that were once which can only be seen Yorkshire Water it at a high temperature coal mines or quarries under a microscope

Nitrogen Oxygen Ozone Phosphorus A chemical element found A chemical element found Pale blue gas that is soluble A chemical element in sludge which is very in water, essential to plant, in water and can be used found in sludge which is benefi cial to plants animal and fi sh life to kill bacteria in water very benefi cial to plants

Pumping Station Reeds Reservoir Service reservoir Pumps water to, and A plant that grows in water and A large man-made lake Where cleaned water sewage away from homes and creates the perfect environment where water supplies is kept before going businesses via pipe networks for micro-organisms can be stored back to your home

Sludge Ultra-violet Ure Wharfe The solid material A form of light that One of the rivers that One of the rivers that found in sewage can be used to kill supplies water for supplies water for harmful bacteria Yorkshire Water Yorkshire Water

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