Bend company uses plants and microbes to solve water conservation issues

(MAY 12, 2023) LeapFrog Design is a company in Bend, Oregon. It uses plants and microbes to help conserve water in areas that have drought (not enough water). They have created a system called the Estuary. It looks like a planter box on the outside, but on the inside it cleans gray water from sinks, showers, and washing machines. The clean water can be reused for irrigation or toilets.  LeapFrog is also developing a system to clean "black water" from septic tanks using plants and microbes. It plans to test the system and reuse the water for livestock, agriculture, and firefighting. 

The founders of LeapFrog, Adam DeHeer and Nick Sund, worked on a sanitation project in Lima, Peru in 2016. They are trying to create a solution for liquid waste and gray water. In 2020, just before the pandemic, they created a modular system that uses plants to treat household wastewater. It combines the technology of hydroponics (the method of growing plants in water to which special chemicals are added, rather than growing them in earth) and constructed wastelands (a low cost wastewater treatment technology which can effectively treat wastewater, without chemical or mechanical requirements). The containerized gardens can also be used as public green spaces while cleaning wastewater.

The Estuary system has two main components. The smart bench is a tank that receives gray water from the house and stores the water to be treated. The wetland-inspired, plant-powered reactor looks like a landscaped planter box. The beneficial bacteria in the reactor help to clean the water. Once the gray water passes through the system, the clean water is pumped to a storage tank where it is ready for reuse.