Primary : Sewerage
Sewerage
Sewerage - Where Does The Water From Your Toilet Go?
When you flush the toilet, a whole lot of clean water pushes the dirty water over and out through an S-shaped pipe, and into another pipe that goes deep into the ground outside your home.
The S-shaped pipe stops any dirty water coming back into your toilet. It also holds the clean water in the bottom of the toilet bowl, and this stops nasty smells coming into the room from the pipes below.
The dirty water you have flushed runs into a much bigger pipe in the street outside your home. This pipe is called a Main Sewer. It has been built so that it slopes very gently downwards away from your house. It keeps going gently down and down, so that gravity keeps the dirty water flowing.
But it can't keep going down forever, so at different places the water is pumped up towards the surface of the ground - still in a big pipe - and then it starts another long gentle slope downwards. All along the way it is joined by more dirty water from other people's places, so after a while it needs an even bigger pipe.
This bigger pipe is called a Trunk Sewer. A trunk sewer is so big that you could easily drive a car along inside it. Finally your dirty water - which is called sewage - arrives at one of Melbourne's two big sewage treatment plants.
One is at Werribee, and takes sewage mostly from Melbourne's central, northern and western suburbs. It is called the Western Treatment Plant. The other is at Bangholme, and takes sewage mostly from Melbourne's eastern and southern suburbs. It is called the Eastern Treatment Plant.
- Learn more about what sewage is and how you can help to protect the environment.
- Learn more about Western Treatment Plant.
- Learn more about Eastern Treatment Plant.
Useful Teacher Resources
A list of useful teacher resources can be found under Educational Resources.