Inventor Dean Cameron is pathologically opposed to wasted energy. And his obsession is paying off. Designing from his earth-sheltered cave (with pineapples growing on top and passionfruit vines inside), his energy-efficient Biolytix Wastewater Treatment System has won the following awards:

-  Two Australian and New Zealand Innovation Awards (Dupont)
-  An Australian Innovation Hero Award (The Warren Centre for Advanced Engineering – for Outstanding Innovation in Engineering Technology)
-  The Asian Innovation Award (The Wall Street Journal, Asia)

Based in Maleny, Queensland, Dean Cameron discovered 12 years ago a way to cut the energy needed for treating wastewater by up to 90%. While most conventional systems treat wastewater by pumping oxygen into it with high energy aerators and agitators, Dean Cameron copied the more passive efficiency of nature.

His Biolytix ecosystem in a tank is soil based. Each tank is like a huge lung with an estimated 450 square kilometres of oxygenated pores. The pores naturally draw high levels of oxygen directly from the air.

He says “it will soon seem as silly to waste electricity on treating wastewater as it is to dump treated wastewater into the sea”.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency “sewage treatment often comprises the largest use of electricity by local governments”.

The Biolytix Wastewater Treatment System can be used for households, commercial buildings and networked for housing developments and neighbourhoods, reducing infrastructure costs by up to 50%.

While many Australian companies are now baulking at the problems and costs of cutting energy use, Biolytix Technologies has focused on minimising energy use from the outset.