Vast amounts of valuable energy, nutrients, water lost in world’s fast-rising wastewater streams, says study
Resource details
Resource ID
8584
Access
Open
Contributed by
Sharmani Gunawardena
Other
Resource recovery & reuse, wastewater agriculture irrigation
Date
05 February 20
Summary
Among major nutrients, 16.6 million metric tonnes of nitrogen are embedded in wastewater produced worldwide annually, together with 3 million metric tonnes of phosphorus and 6.3 million metric tonnes of potassium. Theoretically, full recovery of these nutrients from wastewater could offset 13.4% of global agricultural demand for them.
Beyond the economic gains of recovering these nutrients are critical environmental benefits such as minimizing eutrophication – the phenomenon of excess nutrients in a body of water causing dense plant growth and aquatic animal deaths due to lack of oxygen.
Source
Envirotech
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