A joint research initiative by the University of Saskatchewan and the City of Saskatoon is exploring the future of wastewater purification.

Dr. Markus Brinkmann says wastewater treatment plants are meant to, and do a good job of, removing human waste, oil, toilet paper, and nutrients. However, they have a difficult time filtering out contaminants like chemicals, pharmaceuticals, and microplastics.

“They (pharmaceuticals) are meant to have biological effects quite often, so they are potentially posing risk to downstream environments. Recognizing that wastewater treatment plants aren’t so great at removing them presently, we asked ourselves ‘Okay, what can we do in order to advance this?’”

In other, more densely populated, European countries, activated carbon is used as a filter to remove these pollutants. Brinkmann says that method wouldn’t work here, as Saskatoon’s wastewater plant emits 90 million litres per day, and filtering it all would be cost-prohibitive and unscalable.

Thus, Brinkmann and the team have been looking at the use of advanced oxidation, the process in which highly reactive oxygen atoms would be introduced into the wastewater, react with the micropollutants, and scavenge them from the wastewater.

“Turning them into smaller fragments that are less toxic, and often times more easily dealt with down in the receiving environment by microbes and other things.”

He says the most important and helpful thing that we as consumers can do is dispose of pharmaceuticals properly.

“The right way to deal with it is to not flush it down the toilet, but to look at the label and see what has to be done. Some of those over-the-counter medications can be landfilled. Others, your pharmacist will be happy to advise, and sometimes they’ll even be able to take care of it for you.”

He adds that even shampoos and other body care products could be contributing to the problem, as not everything labeled biodegradable can degrade in Saskatchewan’s climate

If this process is found affective under lab conditions, Brinkmann says they will conduct a cost-benefit analysis and attempt to scale it so it can be implemented within City operations.