Towards a circular economy: Exploring resource recovery from waste streams

流经世界下水道的废水含有丰富的资源，可以回收利用。将这些溪流视为待处理的“废物”而不是待回收的“资源”的传统方法不再是可持续的解决方案。现在是将废物管理模式转变为资源回收模式，以此作为可持续社会的基石的时候了。拟议的与沙迦大学（阿拉伯联合酋长国）的合作将探索生态友好和经济的技术，这些技术可以导致可持续的可再生能源、材料（例如，聚合物、营养物）以及有效的废物管理技术。它将启动不同的项目和概念验证研究，从废物流中提取资源。这些影响包括：更好地理解微生物工程在资源回收中的作用;通过废物流的高吞吐量加强资源提取;将生命周期评估和机器学习集成到水资源回收设施（WRRF）中，以促进变革性的废水处理技术。拟议的合作将侧重于对加拿大生态系统最敏感的环境影响类别，包括气候变化、臭氧消耗和人类毒性。 这将带来巨大的环境、技术和经济效益。这项研究的长期影响可能会导致采用WRRF的污水处理厂（WWTP）设计取得突破性进展，从而促进向循环经济的过渡。拟议的研究将有助于巩固加拿大作为环境研究和创新中心的全球声誉，并促进基于地方的能力培训和技术转让。通过这种合作实现的最先进的培训将提高加拿大土木和环境工程行业的能力，从而创造就业机会并进一步推动经济影响。

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.