Investigating PFAS in Canadian Water Systems: Cross-Sector Collaboration Advances Research on Emerging Contaminants
On June 5, 2025, the Ontario Water Consortium (OWC) hosted the second in a series of webinars exploring the progress of a major collaborative research initiative focused on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in Canadian water systems. Co-led by Professor Scott Hopkins (University of Waterloo) and Professor Franco Berruti (Western University), the project exemplifies how academic, municipal, and private-sector partners can work together to address one of the most complex and urgent issues facing water systems today. The initiative began [...]
Transforming Anaerobic Digestion: New Research Shows a Path Beyond Biogas
In October 2024, the Ontario Water Consortium published “Going Beyond Biogas”, introducing the Waste to Chemicals Alliance - a multi-partner collaboration exploring how anaerobic digestion (AD) can evolve from a conventional energy recovery tool into a platform for producing high-value chemicals from organic waste. On June 10, 2025, OWC hosted the Alliance’s first public webinar to share progress on this initiative, now entering its final year. The session highlighted key findings in microbial community engineering, product recovery, and process optimization, [...]
Driving Innovation in Water Management: Reflections on the Ontario Greenhouse Workshop
Ontario’s greenhouse sector, anchored in Essex County, is a global leader in greenhouse vegetable production. Yet with this success comes increasing responsibility. On March 27, 2025, the Ontario Water Consortium (OWC), in partnership with the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers (OGVG), University of Windsor Agriculture UWindsor (AgUWin), and the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research (GLIER), convened a timely and impactful workshop to address one of the sector’s most urgent concerns: water. Titled Exploring Water Management Challenges & Innovation in Ontario's [...]