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Sewage Travels from Homes to Treatment to Alternative Energy Production |
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ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA, Apr. 18 -/E-Wire/--
It’s been a problem since the first indoor toilets were installed - what do you do with the sewage? At the beginning, citizens had to step over rivers of waste flowing in the streets and over the land then governments organized sanitary systems to pipe the sewage to rivers and oceans. Recognizing that much more needed to be done, public agencies installed sewage treatment plants which now do a thorough job of taking out the sewage sludge and treating the wastewater before the water is released back into the environment. But what do we do with the leftover sludge?
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Innovative wastewater agencies are doing a lot, it turns out. They are pulling reusable compounds out of the sludge and they are also using the sludge to generate alternative energy. That makes particular sense since research demonstrates that sewage actually contains ten times the energy needed to treat it.
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A new report, State of Science Report: Energy and Resource Recovery from Sludge, published this month by the U.S.-based Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF) and its global partners, presents an exciting picture of the possibilities.
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Once considered a topic not fit for civilized discussion, wastewater sludge is now acknowledged as a source of valuable resources.
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“Interest in extracting products from sludge, while not recent, is rising because of increases in energy costs and impacts of global warming,” according to researchers Youssouf Kalogo and Hugh Monteith, both of Hydromantic Inc., Canada. “Resource recovery from sludge is currently a worldwide topic and has become a key aspect of almost all sludge management master plans.”
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There is a lot of sludge to work with. In the U.S. alone, according to the report, there are 16,583 wastewater treatment facilities producing over 64 pounds of sludge per person, every year. It is estimated that the U.S. produces 6.5 million metric tons of “dry solids” - sewage sludge with the water squeezed out of it - annually. Currently, 45 percent of that sludge is incinerated or goes to landfills, 49 percent is treated and used in land applications, and only 6 percent is reused for other purposes - like energy production.
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The State of Science Report provides a guide to the types of technologies currently available and the new technologies under development. Looking at processes being used and/or tested around the globe, the authors report on the advantages, limitations, energy benefits and carbon footprint as well as the status of wide range of technologies.
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For wastewater treatment managers, and the regulators and policy makers who guide them, the report provides assessments of the social, economic and environmental performances of the technologies. Cities looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprint will find ideas for cost-effective sustainability of their wastewater management. And communities can discover a new vision of wastewater as a reusable resource.
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The State of Science Report is available from the WERF website at www.werf.org.
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This study was jointly funded by the Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF), UK Water Industry Research Limited (UKWIR), and Stichting Toegepast Onderzoek Waterbeheer (STOWA), and was prepared by Hydromantis Inc., as an account of work sponsored by the Global Water Research Coalition. GWRC is a non-profit organization that serves as the international collaborative mechanism for water research, with a focus on water supply and wastewater issues and renewable water resources.
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Contact Info: Dawn Forsythe
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Director of Communications
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Water Environment Research Foundation
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Office: 703-684-2470, ext 7908
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Cell: 240-462-3011
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dforsythe@werf.org
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www.werf.org
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Website : Water Environment Research Foundation
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