Wastewater is an asset, not a liability

          Historically, wastewater treatment started as risk reduction for human health and welfare, migrated to environmental risk reduction, and has now matured into resource recovery and revenue generation. Technology and common practices are in place to treat water as a sustainable resource; we simply can no longer afford to use it once and "throw it in the ocean" nor can we afford the liability of not treating water to our best abilities to protect human health and the environment.

             Specifics, metrics, and detailed examples, not generalizations and platitudes, about recovery of the "water" from wastewater, profitably. It comes down to dollars and cents, a little math, and common sense, and usually much more the first than the last of those. Note: This is a live webinar delivered via WebEx. Session instructions will be emailed to you 24-48 hours prior to the webinar and the morning of the webinar. Webinars are live and interactive and students will have the ability to directly interact with and ask questions of the presenter.

              By 2020 I predict that a new class of distributed systems, powered by advances in our ability to use biotechnology to extract resources, such as energy, from waste, and the dropping cost of industrial automation, will begin to change our approach to managing water globally. Rather than a liability, wastewater will be viewed as an environmental resource, providing energy and clean water to communities and industry, and ushering in a truly sustainable and economical approach to managing our water resources.