95 lbs of gold a year in Swiss waste water system

[Charlie P. (NY)]

I wonder how much jewelry goes down the drain? I kind of barely remember a story about that and the sewer system..... stuff that gets accidentally flushed or falls down the drain.

I got a call from a woman who had apparently accidently flushed an $85,000 necklace and wondered if we had found it. Our plant is four miles and lord knows how many feeder and trunk lines downstream. And by then it's 25,000,000 gallons a day that sweep through. I told her she was welcome to come poke through the 75 ft diameter, 25 ft deep sludge accumulator where the solids settle and the Archimedes screw on the bottom that offloads it to centrifuge driers and eventually lime stabilization before a trip to the landfill . . . but that I guessed it went no further than her cellar clean-out trap.

Never heard back.

 

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[pepperj]

I got a call from a woman who had apparently accidently flushed an $85,000 necklace and wondered if we had found it. Our plant is four miles and lord knows how many feeder and trunk lines downstream. And by then it's 25,000,000 gallons a day that sweep through. I told her she was welcome to come poke through the 75 ft diameter, 25 ft deep sludge accumulator where the solids settle and the Archimedes screw on the bottom that offloads it to centrifuge driers and eventually lime stabilization before a trip to the landfill . . . but that I guessed it went no further than her cellar clean-out trap.


Never heard back.

All that gold going to landfill.

 

[Jason in Enid]

Sewer companies that pump out septic tanks often dump the waste on farmers fields. Just wonder how bits of gold would be in the sludge over the years. Ya you got it, folks eat the crops that are grown on the land...

No, thats illegal and anyone doing that is in for HUUUUGE fines, loss of their business and probable jail time.