Beer Waste Helps Montana Town Save Money On Water Treatment

Upcycling spent barley helps to ease wastewater treatment. In Havre, Montana, the town’s wastewater treatment plant uses barley from a local brewery, Triple Dog Brewing, to feed bacteria. The nutrients from the barley give the bacteria a boost, helping to reduce nitrogen and phosphorous levels in the water. The collaboration means that Havre can save on expensive solutions and upgrades to its wastewater treatment plant.

Mysuru has become a gleaming example for solutions to India's vaster struggles with solid-waste management, toilet construction, sanitation strategy, public outreach, and other measures. The city uses a decentralized model that leverages a mix of municipal resources, NGO leadership, civil society, and cooperation from proud residents and businesses.

Companies and research initiatives around the world are developing and testing new toilets that can collect human urine and turn it into fertilizer. These urine diversion toilets have been implemented in places like South Africa with mixed results. However, researchers in Sweden are using portable toilets to gather the urine, dry it into fertilizer pellets that are then used to grow barley for beer. This work could show how to implement these kinds of toilets on a large scale.

Discarded plastic can serve as construction material for major infrastructure and public works projects. In the Philippines, private companies like San Miguel are stepping in to participate in the government’s infrastructure projects. Companies are increasingly looking at closed-loop systems as a way to address plastic waste and drive construction projects. Nestlé and Unilver are among the other companies working to recover discarded plastics. Some of the programs offer incentives like cash for returned plastic waste.

As cities and states across the United States begin to remove lead water pipes, some communities are looking for cost-effective ways to fix them because of the risk of contaminated drinking water. Three cities in the Midwest have started the process and have used innovative ways to raise the funds to replace the aging service lines, which could be a model for other cities like Chicago to follow.

Reducing landfill waste takes a comprehensive approach. By implementing city-wide composting alongside trash collection and utilizing the sorting technology of Recology, the city’s municipal waste recovery company, San Francisco has significantly reduced the amount of waste residents send to landfills. Although it missed the ambitious target of achieving zero waste by 2020, the city aims to cut what it sends to landfills in half by 2030.

Abandoned buildings can become spaces for economic innovation and experimentation. An abandoned resort spa in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, now houses BlueCity, an ecosystem of sustainable enterprises. The initiative aligns with The Netherland’s 2050 circular strategy, which aims to reduce waste and implement circular design into the economic. At BlueCity, the businesses are leaders in sustainable innovations, from brewers that share byproducts with bakers to companies that recycle plastic.

In the South's rural Black Belt, wastewater management is an issue, but local activists, government officials, and civil engineers are working together to create a new type of sanitation system that works for the geography. The approach also includes public information campaigns to educate people about proper maintenance and stop rumors that can prevent that maintenance.

Improving sanitation and hygiene in rural communities requires coordinating experts and policy makers to find solutions that fit. In addition to coordinating research projects on alternative forms of sewage and wastewater management, the Equal Justice Initiative, the Alabama health department, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working to educate residents about sanitation and public health.

Water conservation has been a hot topic for the last decade. As nations continue to search for ways to ensure a safe water supply for future generations, some places are looking to history for answers. Taking a page out of the 1970s water shortage era for Orange County in California, these places are finding ways to recycle sewage water into drinkable water.