I’ve recently moved into a house with a sewage and waste water treatment plant (an updated septic tank). It is a grandly named Vortex 9. Do any forum members have experience or tips in dealing with coffee related waste into such a system? I am wondering if I can continue to use Puly etc and descaling liquids that would normally go down the sink without a second thought. Would they have an adverse effect on the good bacteria in the treatment plant? Are there any preferred products? Is there anything else I ought to be aware of?

    CafeCalando A cousin of mine had one in a property. I remember they said it was important not to use Phosphate based cleaners in them…I think because it ultimately can discharge into the water course….your type anyway. So detergent for the washing machine, dishwasher etc.. check they are phosphate free.

    Small amounts of bleach…e.g. cleaning toilet bowl are OK and Puly is phosphate free, so shouldn’t post a problem.. Things like hypochlorite, peroxides etc,, should be fine as well. Obviously drain cleaner etc.. would be a no no…

    I believe phosphates are illegal now in UK products, cleaning so you should generally be OK, just look out for anything containing a Phosphorous molecule in it’s make up…sodium phophate, sodium triphophate, polyphosphate stuff like that. However, you should be OK.

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      I’ve got a septic tank, and I would never use bleach. You might be ok in small amounts but chlorine remains toxic even when dilute. For household cleaning the Ecover range are septic safe and their toilet cleaner is bleach free.

      For the coffee machine I use citric acid to descale (this won’t hurt anything when dilute) and puly Caff green, which is the phosphate free version. I’d probably use pulycaff if I already had some though. Any percarbonate based cleaners are fine (often say things like oxy action), as they break down into non harmful chemicals.

      Probably the most important thing is making sure visitors don’t flush anything they shouldn’t. If it didn’t come out of you and isn’t toilet paper then it shouldn’t be flushed.

      Not up to date on the newer septic tanks. With the older type/ multi chamber it was a requirement in the Building Regs that they should be emptied twice a year. Failure to do this can / will lead to solids getting into the ‘fantail outlet’ = where the water is dispersed to the surrounding ground, blocking it up and polluting the ground and rendering the ‘fantail ’ useless.

      This reduces the s/tank to just a holding tank and reducing its capacity.

      This can be very expensive to correct.