New PDX airport sewage treating lobby

Living Machine is helping build the new Port of Portland administrative headquarters next to the airport, which will also serve as an atrium for arriving people from the airport.  Being the center of sustainability, the Port of Portland felt that the entrance to the city should really showcase the true meaning of sustainability in one of the last untouched frontiers to be tested.  Most of the time, we use perfectly good drinking water to carry away our eliminated waste where it is partially treated and then dumped into the river and local ecosystem.  The closed system by Living Machine creates a natural greenhouse of gorgeous plants that deep beneath the surface of the soil are helping play host to the natural breakdown and cleaning process for the waste that is flushed from the airport bathrooms.  The water is cleaned using a chain of monitored processes until eventually clean (yet non-drinkable) emerges at the end ready to be pumpted right back into the toilets of the airport.  Never to fear, this water is only used for toilet flushing and despite being perfectly clean and pathogen free it will never be used for sinks or drinking fountains.  The building is expected to open Spring of 2010 in a 10 story building.  The blackwater purifying plants will be located in the ground floor lobby of the building. See Wired Magazine and USA Today for more information.