Read the full story from the American Chemical Society.
It’s likely not the first thing you think of when you see elephant dung, but this material turns out to be an excellent source of cellulose for paper manufacturing in countries where trees are scarce, scientists report. And in regions with plenty of farm animals such as cows, upcycling manure into paper products could be a cheap and environmentally sound method to get rid of this pervasive agricultural waste.
Read the full story from the University of Florida.
The face of American forests is changing, thanks to climate change-induced shifts in rainfall and temperature that are causing shifts in the abundance of numerous tree species, according to a new paper by University of Florida researchers.
Read the full story at Waste Dive.
When we examine current policies around food waste through the lens of the waste management hierarchy, none of these policies tackle prevention — the top strategy for waste management. Rather, a significant emphasis has been placed on redistribution and reuse through anaerobic digestion and composting, and some work on date labeling.
By revolutionizing microbiological-based technologies in water and wastewater treatment, Professors Mark van Loosdrecht and Bruce Rittmann have demonstrated the possibilities to remove harmful contaminants from water, cut wastewater treatment costs, reduce energy consumption, and even recover chemicals and nutrients for recycling.
Their pioneering research and innovations have led to a new generation of energy-efficient water treatment processes that can effectively extract nutrients and other chemicals – both valuable and harmful – from wastewater.
Mark van Loosdrecht is Professor in Environmental Biotechnology at Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. Bruce Rittmann is Regents’ Professor of Environmental Engineering and Director of the Biodesign Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology at the Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, USA.
On receiving news of the prize, Professor van Loosdrecht said: “I’m very excited and pleased! This is a recognition not just of our work but of the contributions microbiological engineering can make to the water sector”.
In its citation, the Stockholm Water Prize Nominating Committee recognizes Professors Rittmann and van Loosdrecht for “pioneering and leading the development of environmental biotechnology-based processes for water and wastewater treatment. They have revolutionized treatment of water for safe drinking, and refined purification of polluted water for release or reuse – all while minimizing the energy footprint”.
The professors’ research has led to new processes for wastewater treatment currently being used around the globe. “Traditionally, we have just thought of pollutants as something to get rid of, but now we’re beginning to see them as potential resources that are just in the wrong place,” says Professor Rittmann. In his research he has studied how microorganisms can transform organic pollutants to something of value to humans and the environment. “We’re in the middle of a paradigm shift, with more and more focus on how we can create resources, using microbial systems,” he says.
Professor van Loosdrecht’s work echoes this sentiment. His research has led to increasingly common wastewater treatment processes that are less costly and more energy efficient than traditional methods.
“With current technology, you can already be energy neutral and there is a lot of research on how to become energy positive. Especially in developing countries with unstable electricity supply and limited access to funding, this is very important. If we could build a wastewater plant that is self-sufficient in energy, that would make sewage plants feasible in many more places,” says Mark van Loosdrecht.
“Together, Professors Rittmann and van Loosdrecht are leading, illuminating and demonstrating the path forward in one of the most challenging human enterprises on this planet – that of providing clean and safe water for humans, industry, and ecosystems,” says SIWI’s Executive Director Torgny Holmgren.
H.R.H. Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden will present the prize to Professors Rittmann and van Loosdrecht on behalf of H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, Patron of Stockholm Water Prize, at a royal award ceremony on 29 August, during World Water Week in Stockholm.
More about Professor Rittmann
Professor Rittmann has written over 650 peer-reviewed scientific papers. Together with Professor Perry McCarty (the 2007 Stockholm Water Prize Laureate), he is also the author of the textbook Environmental Biotechnology: Principles and Applications.
Professor Rittmann has chaired the Program Committee of the Leading Edge Technology Conference of the International Water Association, where he has worked together with Professor van Loosdrecht. The membrane biofilm reactor (MBfR), a technology that Dr. Rittmann invented, uses naturally occurring microorganisms to remove contaminants such as perchlorate and tricloroethene from water, and has been commercialized.
Dr. Rittmann has received many accolades during his career. These include being named a fellow of the International Water Association, National Academy of Inventors, and American Association for the Advancement of Science; and he is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and a Distinguished Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
More about Professor van Loosdrecht
Professor van Loosdrecht’s research has led to the quite widely used Anammox and Nereda technologies for wastewater treatment. The Anammox process is a resource efficient way to remove nitrogen from wastewater. In industries it is used after anaerobic wastewater treatment while in municipal wastewater treatment it is used in combination with sludge digestion. In both cases this results in an energy producing treatment process.
The Nereda technology is based on granulation of bacteria, which allows a simpler and cheaper municipal wastewater treatment process. A Nereda plant can be built on a smaller patch of land (>60 per cent less area need) and uses up to 50 per cent less energy than conventional methods. Recovery of high performance biopolymers from the ‘waste’ sludge will contribute to a future more circular economy.
Professor van Loosdrecht has been awarded several prizes, including the 2014 Spinoza Prize and the 2012 Lee Kuan Yew Prize. He is chief editor of the scientific journal Water Research and a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the Dutch and USA National Academies of Sciences.
Read the full story from Northwestern University.
With the ability to leach heavy metals from the environment and digest a potent greenhouse gas, methanotrophic bacteria pull double duty when it comes to cleaning up the environment.
But before researchers can explore potential conservation applications, they first must better understand the bacteria’s basic physiological processes. Northwestern University’s Amy C. Rosenzweig recently has constructed another section of the puzzle. Her laboratory has identified two never-before-studied proteins, called MbnB and MbnC, as partially responsible for the bacteria’s inner workings.
“Our findings extend far beyond methanotrophic bacteria,” said Rosenzweig, the Weinberg Family Distinguished Professor of Life Sciences and professor of molecular biosciences and chemistry in Northwestern’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. “These two proteins are found in a range of other bacteria, including human pathogens.”
The paper publishes tomorrow, March 23, in the journal Science.
Climate change may undermine the effectiveness of current efforts to conserve wildlife and ecosystems. In this report we offer examples of how conservationists are strategically altering their approaches to keep pace with climate change. We break down the changes made by 12 featured organizations by WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, and WHY.
Our hope is that this report will help conservationists learn how to move beyond business-as-usual conservation approaches and make their work climate informed. The first step is to consult the latest science on observed and projected climate impacts. Consider how those changes may necessitate shifts in your approaches. For example it may be strategic to preferentially invest in some parts of the landscape over others.
You will find that this is not an overwhelming process and is essential to investing limited conservation resources effectively and achieving conservation success in light of climate change.
Read the full story at Great Lakes Echo.
A Michigan proposal to increase the cost of putting waste into landfills would produce an estimated $79 million annually for environmental initiatives.
Download the document and explore the recommended raters.
SPLC’s supplier ratings assessment project helps purchasers make sense of the landscape of supplier ratings tools.
Read the full story in Waste Dive.
Canada’s move toward legalizing recreational marijuana presents a new waste stream to be effectively managed. According to Karen Lauriston, a spokesperson for Micron Waste, there will be an estimated 6,000 metric tons of cannabis waste in Canada by 2020.
Micron is installing an aerobic digester on-site at Aurora Cannabis Inc., a medical marijuana producer and distributor. Micron President Alfred Wong told Waste Dive the digester should be operational by June this year.
Micron testified before a Canadian Senate committee this week, Wong said. “We understood the committee had an interest in looking at compost and other ways to look at cannabis waste. We wanted to be there to say, ‘we’re here, we’re being effective in what we’re doing to manage cannabis waste.'”
Read the full story in the Washington Post.
Environmental Protection Agency staffers received a list of “talking points” this week instructing them to underscore the uncertainties about how human activity contributes to climate change.
