Last night WEX, the Water and Energy Exchange, celebrated
its 10th anniversary with a Gala Dinner held in Lisbon. For those
not familiar with WEX over the last decade it has grown to become one of the
foremost networking events, initially for European and Middle Eastern entities
but with an increasing geographic reach.
Immediately prior to the dinner I participated as a judge in
a technical innovation competition where 5 companies pitched against each other.
Control Point told explained how they reduce leakage by ensuring the efficacy
of joint repairs (and getting an appropriately decent if childish snigger from
the audience when they talked about Butt Fusion). Hawle shared secrets from the
sex life of Zebra mussels, noting their mission (rather un-sportingly I felt)
is to ruin their amorous intentions. EDI went a step further and gave the
judges a sample of their fine bubble aeration membranes, plus a piece of course
sandpaper, and challenged us to destroy it. We all failed. It is quite a
spectacular piece of material.
It was a close run thing but the winner was Arvia. Arvia have
developed an innovative way of removing recalcitrant industrial pollutants from
wastewaters. Be it hospital waste, nuclear waste, or pharmaceutical waste they simply
chew it up and remove it. However the fact that stuck with me most from their
presentation was that ibuprofen passes through conventional wastewater
treatment processes completely untouched. This is possibly good if you are a
fish with a headache, but it doesn’t seem right somehow.
It was a good night. This year WEX even had some Americans attend.
I couldn’t help but wonder what they made of the Portuguese meal start time of
almost 10pm. They may have also found it slightly odd when Frank Rogalla
(Aqualia, Head of Innovation) sang in German a birthday folk song. This was
followed by Pavel Policar, Chairman of the Czech Water Association, on guitar
leading the audience in a rousing Happy Birthday chorus. You may find this hard
to believe but I confess to being one of the ringleaders behind this slightly
quirky turn of events. It felt like we should mark the occasion with something just
a little bit different.
Well done Arvia. Happy Birthday WEX!
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