The Wastewater Treatment Nexus: Energy, Nutrients and Water with CEO of ThinkTIM Marc Wehmeijer | The Living Revolution

The Living Revolution

Wastewater is a gold mine for energy, nutrients and water. Marc Wehmeijer dispels myths about breaking in to the wastewater industry, and takes us on a tour of the global wastewater treatment landscape from the deserts of Durango, Mexico to the Swiss Alps.

Marc Wehmeijer is the CEO of ThinkTIM, a company that designs, manufactures, installs and services wastewater treatment recycling units. Wehmeijer advocates for the use of artificial wetlands as treatment methods and to promote biodiversity. He emphasises wastewater as a 'microbiological zoo', detailing how we can extract phosphates from wastewater and use excess sludge to produce energy.
Additionally, he promotes segmenting wastewater treatment processes with the end use in mind - for example, not using portabilised water for crop irrigation. The key message of wastewater treatment being: decentralise, segment and capitalise to the full extent!
The Living Revolution brings you scientists, industry leaders and entrepreneurs working on engineering biology to solve the world’s most pressing challenges. Listen in to hear the trials and successes of the bioeconomy.
This podcast is produced by Sara Knurowska. The full transcript can be found using this link.

Hoofdstukken

1. Introduction to Marc Wehmeijer and The Living Revolution (00:00:00)

2. Key vulnerabilities in the water sector (00:00:42)

3. The value of wastewater as water, energy and nutrients (00:01:58)

4. Process of wastewater treatment and wastewater recycling (00:04:35)

5. Artificial wetlands and why we need to segment wastewater treatment and release into natural water bodies (00:08:10)

6. Decentralising wastewater treatment (00:11:55)

7. Recycling wastewater in arid land and wastewater treatment in Mexico (00:14:21)

8. Is it difficult to break in to wastewater treatment and key infrastructure services? Short answer: no! (00:18:25)

9. Reasons for installing a wastewater treatment plant. (00:20:08)

10. What does it mean to price water appropriately? (00:21:49)

11. ThinkTIM's best customers (00:22:22)

12. Decentralised wastewater treatment necessary in sparsely populated areas. (00:23:59)

13. Is the policy on the side of wastewater recycling? (00:25:46)

14. The future of decentralising wastewater treatment. (00:30:20)

15. Mexico City's future wastewater treatment. (00:34:03)

16. Advice for those of you wanting to enter the wastewater industry (00:35:34)

17. How biotechnology can be utilised alongside artificial wetlands to treat wastewater. (00:38:08)

18. Outro (00:39:22)