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Changing the Paradigm of Wastewater Treatment

Setting the bar for water stewardship and recovery for reuse, the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD), in partnership with Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies (Ostara.com), has opened the world’s largest nutrient recovery facility at their Stickney water reclamation plant, in Cicero, to help recover phosphorus and protect the Mississippi River basin from pollutants.

       The new nutrient recovery facility is an example of how progressive technology can be implemented to transform a wastewater treatment facility into a resource recovery center, providing significant environmental benefits to the Chicago area’s waterway system and downstream to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. Phosphorus and nitrogen will be recovered from wastewater to create a high-value fertilizer with a process that is both economically and environmentally viable This new approach represents a significant shift in the wastewater industry from treatment to recovery for reuse.

       Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who attended the opening ceremony, said in a statement specifically directed to Natural Awakenings readers, “If Chicagoland residents really want to protect Lake Michigan and restore the Illinois and Calumet Rivers, that kind of change only happens with political commitment. The most important thing for people to do is to organize and demand those commitments from their politicians. It’s much more important for people to change their politicians than to change their light bulbs or their automobiles.”

       Nutrient pollution is one of the biggest environmental problems of the century, and excess phosphorus in waterways can cause algae to grow and bloom, creating toxic conditions that destroy aquatic life and severely limit recreational enjoyment of lakes and rivers.

For more information, visit mwrd.org.