Sewers

I think a modern city could exist without art but it couldn't exist without sewers. There has to be some way of getting shit from where it is produced to some other place far away.

Sewers in Taiwan are never far from the surface so the sewer covers have a particular effect on a street walker like me. Unfortunately the camera can't record the smells of the sewer.

The typical sewer in Tainan is a trough of cement with plates of cement or steel covered by a layer asphalt to even it with the road bed.

Here is an old style construction in progress.




































As it completes the coverings are readied.





































The manhole coverings are not what the "Ess Bros & Sons" would think as being adequate. But given how shallow they are I suppose it's good enough.


















In the end it looks OK, the problem is that the effluent is still pretty close to nose level.

















Recently I've seen a new construction method that replaces the trough molded in cement to flexible plastic tubes. In an earthquake prone area like Taiwan this seems an adaptive strategy. Broken cement troughs with leakage seems could be a big problem. Whereas the flexible plastic pipes will not break and the individual cement collection areas will float on the earthquake movements. To me it seems good engineering.






































The connection point of the sewer 'pipes'.