‘Resource Recovery in the Water cycle’: what does the future look like?

On 3 November, the ‘Accelerating Resource Recovery from Wastewater’ workshop was held during the Amsterdam International Water Week 2015. EFGF (Energy & Raw Materials Factory), ARREAU (Accelerating Resource Recovery from the Water Cycle), ESPP (European Sustainable Phosphorus Platform), KWR and the Nutrient Platform joined forces to set up the workshop.

The panel headed by Professor Willy Verstraete (photo: Rob Kamminga).

Pitches on resource recovery in the water cycle

Willy Verstraete (IWA), Kees Roest (ARREAU/KWR) and Christian Kabbe (ESPP/KWB) started off the workshop with short pitches providing different perspectives (international, European, with phosphorus as an example) on the recovery and recycling of raw materials from the water cycle. Verstraete presented his view on the changes that need to be made to stimulate demand. Kees Roest provided nice examples of already-developed value chains (e.g., drinking water production residuals) and of others currently under development (e.g., phosphorus and cellulose). Christian Kabbe pointed to several bottlenecks in the marketing and recovery of phosphorus. He also introduced the participants to the e-market, an online market for recovered nutrients, set up by P-Rex and the European Sustainable Phosphorus Platform (ESPP).

Participants voting with green and red cards (photo: Rob Kamminga).

Interactive component with panel

Later in the session, the participants and panel members were called on, under the guidance of Verstraete, to participate in the interactive component of the workshop. The panel consisted of Christian Kabbe, Pradeep Kumar Mohanty (Finish Society), Coos Wessels (BWA) and Geoffrey Salt (Advanced Minerals Softening Pellets). The panel members presented a number of propositions and asked the audience to react. Together with the pitches, the viewpoints of the 50-plus participants and panel produced interesting discussions and new insights.