The challenge of removing waste from wastewater: let technology use nature

• Published in: Microbial biotechnology Vol. 14; no. 1; pp. 63 - 67
• Main Author: Nunes, Olga C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01-01-2021; John Wiley and Sons Inc; Wiley
• Subjects: Antibiotics; Asepsis; Cleaning; Climate change; Crystal Ball; Disinfection; Drinking water; Drug resistance; Effluents; Efflux; Inactivation; Microbiomes; Microbiota; Microorganisms; Nutrients; Oxidative stress; Ozonation; Pollutants; Proteobacteria; Recycling; Regrowth; Technology; Urban areas; Urban environments; Virulence; Waste Disposal, Fluid; Wastewater - analysis; Wastewater treatment; Wastewater treatment plants; Water Purification; Water treatment
• ISSN: 1751-7915; 1751-7915
• DOI: 10.1111/1751-7915.13711

Tertiary treatments capable of removing chemical and biological contaminants of emerging concern have been successfully developed and implemented at full scale, opening the possibility of using wastewater treatment plants as recycling units, capable of producing wastewater that can be reused in various activities, such as agriculture irrigation; However, tertiary treatments remove only part of the wastewater microbiota, leaving the opportunity for regrowth and/or reactivation of potentially hazardous microorganisms, facilitated by the poor competition among the surviving microorganisms; Under the motto ‘added by technology, lead by nature’, the treatment and storage of treated wastewater must find the balance to develop a protection shield against the impoverishment the microbial quality and the development of potentially hazardous bacteria.