When Elsayed Elbeshbishy finished his PhD in environmental engineering in 2011, he was eager to add some applied experience to his academic expertise. He got that opportunity thanks to Mitacs, a not-for-profit organization that connects researchers with industrial partners. The program funded an 18-month post-doc fellowship with Trojan Technologies, where Elbeshbishy helped develop a [...]
How Ontario’s researchers are transforming the water sector Taking promising research from the lab bench to the marketplace isn’t a simple journey. But with a little help, investigators at Ontario universities are commercializing their discoveries. And the technologies they’ve developed — from high-tech sensors to artificial intelligence and nano-catalysts — promise to change water monitoring, [...]
Ontario municipalities are facing a deadline. Under provincial Regulation 588/17, they must have an asset management policy in place by July 2019, followed by targets for Levels of Service by July 2021. These requirements makes good business sense. To manage infrastructure appropriately, you need to know what you have and what condition it’s in. An [...]
The primary goal of wastewater treatment is to remove organic material and nutrients that can hurt lakes and rivers and be detrimental to human health. No question, that’s a critical job. But more and more municipalities across Ontario are adding a second objective: extracting value from wastewater. And there’s plenty of value to squeeze out. [...]
In Canada, boil water advisories in First Nation communities regularly make headlines. Unfortunately, thousands of First Nation households across the country cannot drink the water that comes out of their tap. One of the big challenges of ensuring safe drinking water in remote areas is the shortage of qualified operators to oversee treatment systems. In [...]
When summer storms roll through southern Ontario, city officials depend on stormwater management ponds to store runoff, keep pollutants out of lakes and rivers and prevent basements from flooding. Today, however, municipalities are increasingly adding Low Impact Development (LID) technologies to complement those ponds. Peppered throughout urban environments, these inconspicuous landscape features may take the [...]
As 2018 draws to an end, SOWC reflects on a busy and productive past year. We wanted to take this opportunity to revisit some of this year’s highlights. We shared a story about the amazing women driving AWT projects And [...]
Across North America, drinking water treatment plants have to keep trihalomethanes (THMs) — a potential carcinogen — below strict limits. However, if they don’t have sophisticated gas chromatography equipment and trained specialists on site, plants must rely on commercial labs to test their samples. That means waiting up to a week to get results, which [...]
What a difference a couple of years can make. When we first introduced you to Greyter Water Systems in 2016, the Ontario-based company was fine-tuning its new residential greywater product. By filtering shower and bath water so it can be reused for flushing toilets, the Greyter HOME system can cut household water consumption an impressive [...]
It is estimated that Canada’s wastewater treatment plants produce as much as 660,000 tonnes of dried sludge in a year. While a portion of the sludge may be treated and recycled as fertilizer, most facilities dispose of the remainder through landfills or incineration, placing a strain on their operating costs as well as on the [...]
