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posted by martyb on Tuesday February 04 2020, @01:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the watt-a-waste dept.

Phys.org:

Vast amounts of valuable energy, agricultural nutrients, and water could potentially be recovered from the world's fast-rising volume of municipal wastewater, according to a new study by UN University's Canadian-based Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH).

[...]Today, the volume of wastewater roughly equals the annual discharge from the Ganges River in India. By the mid-2030s, it will roughly equal the annual volume flowing through the St. Lawrence River, which drains North America's five Great Lakes.

Among major nutrients, 16.6 million metric tonnes of nitrogen are embedded in wastewater produced worldwide annually, together with 3 million metric tonnes of phosphorus and 6.3 million metric tonnes of potassium. Theoretically, full recovery of these nutrients from wastewater could offset 13.4% of global agricultural demand for them.

Beyond the economic gains of recovering these nutrients are critical environmental benefits such as minimizing eutrophication—the phenomenon of excess nutrients in a body of water causing dense plant growth and aquatic animal deaths due to lack of oxygen.

The energy embedded in wastewater, meanwhile, could provide electricity to 158 million households—roughly the number of households in the USA and Mexico combined.

Journal Reference:
Manzoor Qadir et al. Global and regional potential of wastewater as a water, nutrient and energy source$. 27 January 2020, Natural Resources Forum. DOI: 10.1111/1477-8947.12187

The aquatic plants that depend on the effluent could not be reached for comment.


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 04 2020, @02:56AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 04 2020, @02:56AM (#953393) Journal

    Captured grey water is easier to filter and re-use than "black" and industrial waste water, so why add them together?

    Because the cost of ignoring externalities (and not capturing/filtering grey water at source) is lower.
    And it allows the industry to disguise their waste and don't give a damn about the effects.

    Why do you hate capitalism? (grin)

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