We tried Singapore's sewage beer. What can we learn from their water recycling story?

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.

A water management committee manages Barigaon’s water ATM, which uses a nanotechnology-based ion exchange resin to remove iron and arsenic from groundwater. Residents, who swipe a pre-paid card to collect water in their own containers, pay 40 cents per 20 liters or a flat monthly fee of less than $3. Water is free for families who can’t afford the fee and delivery is arranged for those who are unable to transport water. Around 250 villagers use the ATM each day and its success inspired five additional ATMs, with plans to install 172 statewide. Fees cover maintenance and the landowner’s electricity costs.

Since it was reported that Newark’s lead levels in the city’s drinking water were higher than federal standards, the Newark Water Coalition installed a Water Box. This is a portable filtration system that removes contaminants to provide 10 gallons of clean water each minute. The organization worked with another nonprofit that implemented a Water Box in Flint, Michigan, to secure funding to install three others in the city.

With climate change on the horizon, Los Angeles is rushing to pull water from surprising sources. The goal: aqueous independence.

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.

Finding ways to reuse brewery waste can save water treatment plants money. In Havre, Montana, Triple Dog Brewing has entered into a partnership with the town’s wastewater treatment plant, supplying discarded barley to feed the plant’s microbes. The barley replaces commercial bacteria feed, which would have cost the plant thousands of dollars. The town was also able to avoid having to do costly upgrades to its water treatment plant. Other towns are looking to this process for inspiration.

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.

The Bill Gates Foundation is currently funding a number of organizations that seek to solve the rate of open defecation by creating low-cost toilets that utilize the feces within them. One organization, called Sanergy, operates in 11 neighborhoods across Nairobi and uses a systems-based approach that takes into account financing and maintenance of the toilet as well as selling the waste as fertilizer. Another, called Tiger Toilets in India, uses a septic tank toilet that places worms within the drainage layer who then consume the feces and produce fertilizer to be used or sold.

Although commonplace in many parts of the world, Berlin has recently adopted the practice of using water fountains to cut back on plastic bottle usage. Not everyone supports this environmental push, but the mayor is hopeful they will at least catch on with tourists who are accustomed to the invention already as well as act as a resource for refilling plastic bottles rather than throwing them away.

Water was scarce in the Moroccan Ait Baamrane tribal region, which meant women and children often had to travel great distances to fetch water from wells. A new technology that harvests water from fog, however, has changed their way of life by generating enough clean drinking water for the entire region.