Shipping container + wastewater = awesome engineering feat

Let's be honest. No one really likes to think about where stuff goes when toilets are flushed, showers are used or dishes are washed. It's not something anyone wants to think about - unless maybe it's part of their job, like it is for one of our alums, Brandon Freeman.

But I digress. My point is this - most of us living in the U.S. are fortunate to have a system for our wastewater to be treated, whether it be through treatment plants or septic tanks. But that's not how it works at many of our forward operating bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. Daily convoys of more than 20 trucks are used to supply a base with fuel or water and dispose of wastewater and solid waste.

But Jianmin Wang, a professor of civil, architectural and environmental engineering at Missouri S&T, has an idea that could change that. His system, housed inside a shipping container, is good that it could be deployed anywhere - from small, rural communities to forward operating bases, like those in Iraq or Afghanistan. It's a pretty cool system that's low power, low maintenance and highly efficient.

Cheaper, better and faster - who knew you could get all three?