March, 2003
I recently saw Dean who let me know that Dowmus and its legal death-throes were now a thing of the past and he was continuing development of his technology under new auspices - BIOLYTIX International. You can see where the Dowmus technology has gone on the Biolytix site.
Biolytix™ was selected from 3000 inventions to be on ABC TV "The New Inventors". It was voted a Double Winner, being awarded both the Judges Award and the People's Choice.
For historical - and sentimental - reasons we have retained our original piece on the Dowmus system but the information is now (March 2005) out-dated and largely obsolete.
Our original story
In December of 1992 I moved to Maleny - one of the first things I did was to have a "stall" at the Folk Festival - a wonderful, kaleidoscopic experience where I was introduced to a range of ideas. One that still stands out in my mind was Dean Cameron's DOWMUS system - I remember a large, black plastic tank perched precariously on a trailer outside the "Green Tent".
Over the years Trijntje (my wife) and I have had lots of interactions with the Dowmus system and organisation and have learnt a lot from them. I have built this page so that there is at least some information on the Internet for the many people who are looking for a sane personal and domestic "pollution solution".
As I write (May, 2002), I know Dean is still active in developing and installing the sytem around the world - I have no idea how to obtain information about the system's availablilty in other countries. In Australia the system has not been available for 2 years now due to the original company going into receivership. Sounds familiar?
I have installed a Dowmus in my home at Middle Path which handles the total waste - including sewage, paper, garden prunings (small ones) and greywater. It does this in the middle of a man-made lake - surrounded in 3 sides by water which forms the the headwaters of Bridge Creek - a major tributary of the Baroon Pocket Dam which is a major water supply for the SunShine Coast communities.
I mention this to let you know that we have stringent standards for the output and pollutions levels produced by our Dowmus. When last tested, the water in the lake was rated the "purest and healthiest" in Maleny (from a selection of 15 samples). There are still 3 active families of platypus in the lake which we regard as a vote of confidence in the system's performance.
The system recovers the vast majority of the nutrients which are washed and flushed down the pipes and delivers them automatically in a safe and usable state to our gardens.
The system uses no chemicals and is not temperamental in that if we do empty some bleach down the sink there is no loss of functionality.
In short this is the best domestic waste management system I have ever seen - it works reliably without attention, consumes no power or chlorine, does not smell or have hi tech, complex components - in fact it is a beautiful answer to one of the world's acute pollution problems. It works well in urban (3 klms from Sydney's GPO) and rural environments.
What happened?
Trijntje worked for Dowmus for many months and, during this period, I built their initial website. To this day there has been nothing changed on the website but this morning, I noticed that the site had vanished which has prompted me to put up this page so that there is at least one point where you can discover that this magnificent system does exist and does the job!
As to why Australians are not able to get the world's finest domestic waste treatment system but villagers in Vietnam and tribesmen in the Transvaal can - who can say?
Sometime in the year 2000 I started receiving legal demands for payment of "an outstanding debt" for our Dowmus system - it had been installed under an agreement which offset some of the expense against the Dowmus website development - a fairly common arrangement in Maleny business practice. The 2 years of patient, repeated explanations appears to be complete and I believe the Dowmus business entity is now totally defunct.
Over the years the business changed hands and Dean Cameron - the inventor and ongoing developer of the technology became disassociated from the business entity. The business entity - despite having many customers clamouring for their excellent product and with a growing, satisfied customer base - went under.
Yet today there are still a variety of commercial products available which are all, in my opinion, inferior to the Dowmus system in terms of odour, high maintenance demands, chemical usage, technological complexity, temperamental performance or several of the above. I do admit I am no expert not have I made any attempt to stay current in this area - but I do have friends with a variety of these sytems installed so I can compare their performances.
I intend to document our Dowmus system and how it works for us - until then here is a list of other Internet resources which reference the Dowmus sytem. I gleaned these from an extensive search of the net which returned some 40 or so references, below are the only links which pointed at something useful other than the now-extinct Dowmus site.
I hope that helps - I am mystified as to why such a magnificent Australian product which services a deperate need around the world - in all countries and situations - has all but disappeared from the landscape. Lets hope it is a temporary absence .......... are you out there Dean?
