Thumbs up to a featured item in the International Water Association (IWA)’s The Source magazine, on Rethinking resource recovery in wastewater. While it’s an opinion piece, rather than a presentation of fresh results or research, it marshals the arguments well and covers a wide perspective. It also makes the powerful point that in many respects the focus of questions about ‘How can we do this?’ has already moved from technological onto economic aspects.
There are plenty of topics that readers may want to pick up on, particularly when these are close to their own areas of expertise:Â the piece deals with issues central to many of EBNet’s Working Groups, especially those on AGS, AD, AF, BES, Biochar and PISA. The only points we will mention here are the issue of ‘razor-thin margins, revenues exposed to volatile energy and fertiliser markets, and adoption justified more by operational convenience than by market demand‘ and the resulting emphasis on the need for viable business models.
All these points are quite true: and no new concept, however brilliant, will get through the valley of death without relentless attention to economic and financial realities. But the above issues  – margins, volatility, costs – are also driven by the decisions our society makes on pricing fossil resources and environmental damage. It would be good to hear many more voices raised about the urgent need to factor in the true cost of these, to provide robust foundations for a more sustainable economy.
As the item says, “The choices we make today will determine whether wastewater remains an end-of-pipe obligation or becomes the starting point of tomorrow’s resource-secure, circular economy”.Â