Towards a circular economy: Exploring resource recovery from waste streams

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The wastewater that flows through the world's sewers contains a wealth of resources that could be recovered. The traditional approach of looking at these streams as a "waste" to be disposed of rather than a "resource" to be recovered is no longer a sustainable solution. It is time to change the paradigm from waste management to resource recovery as the building block for a sustainable society. The proposed collaboration with the University of Sharjah (United Arab Emirates) will explore eco-friendly and economic technologies that can lead to sustainable sources of renewable energy, materials (e.g., polymers, nutrients), as well as efficient waste management techniques. It will initiate different projects and proof-of-concept studies for resource extraction from waste streams. The impacts include: a greater understanding of the role of microbiome engineering in recovering resources; enhanced resource extraction with high through-put from waste stream; and integrated lifecycle assessment and machine learning into Water Resource Recovery Facilities (WRRFs) to contribute to transformative wastewater treatment technologies. The proposed collaboration will focus on environmental impact categories that are most sensitive to Canadian ecosystems, including climate change, ozone depletion, and human toxicity. It will result in significant environmental, technological, and economic benefits. Long-term impacts of this research can lead to ground-breaking advances in wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) design that adopts WRRFs, thus facilitating the transition to a circular economy. The proposed research will help cement Canada's global reputation as a hub for environmental research and innovation and enabling the enhancement of place-based capacity training and technology transfer. State-of-the-art training enabled through this collaboration will increase the capacity of Canada's civil and environmental engineering industry, leading to job creation and fueling further economic impact.