No 176: Our Meghan Markle Moment

Last night in Birmingham, UK, the 2018 Annual Water Industry Awards were held.  Now in their 12th year and organized by WWT, they mark the beginning of Utility Week Live. It was a big swanky event; posh food, black ties, loud music….you get the picture. After years of never quite making it onto the podium, last night Isle walked away with our first ever award. After years of being the bridesmaid, we finally became the bride.

We won in the category of ‘Sludge and Resource Recovery’. If this were the Oscars it would probably rank alongside the Oscar for Best Lighting but I am not complaining. An Oscar winner is an Oscar winner, whether they are Best Director or something a little more obscure. The same logic applies here. We are a winner. At last.

What made our win all the more glorious was that our entry was for the INCOVER project. INCOVER is a collaborative project funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 programme. It has developed innovative and sustainable technologies for resource recovery, working at demonstration (as opposed to laboratory) scale. It is an awesome project (see http://incover-project.eu/). It has involved testing at scale a wide range of ground breaking sustainable technologies, from hydrothermal carbonization (to generate household fuel from sludge) to algal farms for bioplastics. It was a worthy winner, even if I say so myself.

If Isle was the bride then the groom has to be our fellow European partners. There are (at least) 18 different organisations from across the EU involved in INCOVER, from big utilities to small tech firms, from consultancies to universities. INCOVER is an example of the EU working at its best. As the UK continues on its determined path towards exiting the EU, in all likelihood crashing out without any deal, it is nice to remind ourselves that not everything about the EU was broken. Collaborative, smooth running partnerships do exist. Like-minded, civilised organisations from across Europe are able to work together harmoniously. Who would have thought?   

My role was that of father of the bride. I had next to no direct involvement in the award winning project yet, unlike Meghan’s dad, I dug deep and found within myself the ability to take some of the glory from last night. After all, it has taken 8 years for Isle to make it onto the winners podium. It might never happen again.

No 175: Get angry. Do something. Be imaginative.

Like many others across the globe I have been spurred by the reports of the accumulation of waste plastic in our natural environment to change how I live, and in particular to change the relationship I have with single-use plastics. It has not been easy. Try and live a day without creating plastic waste and you will see what I mean. It is impossible. You have to cheat and change the terms of the challenge to ‘single use’ plastics and even then it is nigh-on impossible (less than 5% of plastic is reused). Last week I was in a café explaining to a friend how I had made it to lunchtime with my only plastic discharge being that annoying plastic cap that goes on the top of milk cartons (weighing less than 0.0005kg; the typical plastic produced per person is between 0.4kg/day – 0.8kg/day). My impressive run however was broken by the arrival of a smoothie (specifically requested in a glass not a plastic cup) with the world’s biggest thickest plastic straw. In a weak lapse in concentration I had lowered my guard and forgotten to stipulate that my drink should be without a plastic straw. It was a rookie error.

I shouldn’t really complain, I have it a little easier than most. As I gracelessly drift into middle age one of the benefits of my receding hairline is that my usage of hair-products, which are invariably contained in plastic, has dropped significantly. It has been 10 years since I used a plastic comb and I hardly ever wash (my hair that is, I am not a complete animal). Nonetheless, when I am in a hotel I still have to actively supress the urge to collect the complimentary bottles of bath foam, shampoo and conditioner. Despite spending half my life in hotels the kleptomaniac in me still hungers to amass these ridiculous freebies, despite them adding nothing whatsoever to the quality of my existence. Like a devout Catholic at confession, I am able to recount exactly how many days it has been since my last shampoo bottle transgression.

Aeroplanes are terrible for plastic usage. The airline hostesses, bless them, bend over backwards to offer a seemingly endless array of single-use plastic items (cups, cutlery and plastic food containers). It is as if my guilt over the carbon footprint of my travel schedule wasn’t burden enough. At least that I can off-set. Hey Mr Airline, want to give good customer service? How about trusting me with a real knife and fork rather than forcing me to pollute the environment with a silly plastic one?  

Of course I recognise that my appetite for plastic is not my only flaw. There are many other  aspects of my life which are equally imperfect and un-environmental: I travel too much, I eat too much red meat, I am about to launch my own unique brand of Shark Fin & Rhino Horn Moisturiser*. But to claim that we shouldn’t address a particular problem simply because there are lots of other problems is wrong, lazy and inexcusable. The build-up of plastic in our environment is an issue we should all get angry about. Righteously angry (the very best sort of angry). A few isolated nutters sending their smoothies back because of a stray plastic straw isn’t enough, We need an army of them.

Some people might argue that small changes made by individuals are meaningless and that real change can only be effected by organisations, politicians and policy makers. They are wrong, We cannot leave this issue to The Suits. It is too big and too thorny to be resolved by them alone. It requires widespread engagement. Thankfully there is lots of activity underway. For example this July Northumbrian Water, a UK Water Company based in the North East of England, is holding its second annual Innovation Festival. This is a week-long event which follows the format of a typical English summer festival (ie lots of rain….) and will involve over a thousand people, both general public and water professionals alike.  During the week there will be a series of  ‘Innovation Sprints’ delving into specific problems. Isle (the business I work for) is leading the Sprint on the plastics challenge.

These Sprints are very intense. Over a 5 day period problems are systematically scoped, solutions evaluated and advancements proposed, refined and tested. It is intense but, as evidenced from last years’ NWL Festival, it delivers great results. The combination of technical brainpower, practical experience and sheer, unadulterated can-do attitude all focused on a target topic is a very powerful tool. Already I have seen some of the potential solutions and they make me quiver with anticipation. I am particularly excited about how the water sector could lead the way with the production of proper biodegradable plastic from sewage sludge (‘proper’ as in fully biodegradable, not the rubbish stuff that is called biodegradable but just breaks into micro particles).

I want you to join me in my Righteous Anger. If you share my passion to address this issue, then please join me in taking action, no matter how small. Cafes will stop using plastic cups only if enough of us make a fuss. It won’t be enough on its own of course. This issue requires a swathe of technical, operational, economic and behavioural solutions, all working in tandem. Perhaps we should start by identifying everyone who disposes of more than 500g/day of plastic and painting their front door with a big red cross.

In blood.

Theirs.

Perhaps that’s going a little too far. Nonetheless, I suspect the limit to how much our generation can solve this problem so that it does not burden the next is the scale of our imagination. If you want to be part of the Northumbrian Water Innovation Festival and the Innovation Challenge on plastics then please let me know, or visit the Northumbrian Water website for more details.  

 *Not all of these are strictly true

FOR MORE INFORMATION SEE VIDEO AT https://plasticoceans.org/about-film/ OR READ THE TRULY EXCELLENT ESSAY BY CLAIRE LE GUERN AT http://plastic-pollution.org/ . THE PHOTOS ALONE ARE WORTH THE CLICK.

For more blogs by Piers click on: http://notesfrompiers.blogspot.co.uk/

No 174: A Valentine’s Day Poem?

If you read the last Notes from Piers the following will make sense. If you didn’t then it won’t.

Suffice to say, Richard Stilgoe is an absolute genius.  

THE END OF THE PIERS

Piers Clark is totally obsessed

With how Darth Vader, once undressed

And locked inside the Dark Star’s loo,

Produces weightless number two.

He wrote about it in his blog –

(An entry he called ‘Captain’s Log’.)

And then, when swimming just off Haiti

(Where Oxfam staff get far too matey)

Piers got a sudden inspiration –

“Super Critical Oxidation! –

That would turn Storm-trooper’s poop

Into pure and tasty soup;

Each time Darth Vader needs to go

We’ll just use S.C.W.O.

To prove this isn’t just a gag

I’ll have it ratified by TAG,

And then, with a small loan from REEF,

It’s my conclusion and belief

That this technology will give

Pure water to help people live!”

He flew back home to tell his staff

Who, trying bravely not to laugh,

Once his opening speech was done

Said “Piers – I think there may be one

Darth Vader fact you might have missed –

He doesn’t actually exist.

He isn’t real – there’s no such bloke,

So your technology’s a joke.”

Cried Piers, “Thank God the staff at Isle

Will always go the extra mile

To test and trial new ideas –

I need the judgment of my peers!”

(At this the staff polite laughs uttered –

They knew which side their bread was buttered).

Piers went on, “Of course I knew

Darth Vader doesn’t really poo,

And thanks to you the truth now dawns –

Instead we will use unicorns!”

The staff said “Poor Piers needs a change;

The Elon Musk Home for the Strange

Must be his future domicile.”

So now, retired, Piers lives in style

And smiles his medicated smile

While dreaming of his happy years

Desalinating all Earth’s tears

With Isle.

  

Richard Stilgoe

14^th February 2018.

No 173: Forget Starlight Express…

Earlier this month I spent a delightful evening at the top of The Gherkin with Richard Stilgoe. For readers not familiar with Richard, he was famous 3 decades ago for being a witty, charming, raconteur who frequently appeared on TV.¹  Think of him as a 1970s Stephen Fry, only wittier. Best known for his humorous songs he wrote the lyrics to Andrew Lloyd Webbers ‘Starlight Express’ and was part of the writing team behind ‘Phantom of the Opera’. Lovely bloke that he is, he has donated a significant proportion of his royalties from these shows to various charities, including WaterAid. No wonder he was knighted in 2012.

I confess that I was not enjoying an exclusive 1-2-1 evening with Sir Richard. We were attending a WaterAid fundraiser. Part of the evenings fundraising activities included a silent auction, and a ‘personalized poem’ composed by Sir Richard was one of the coveted lots. Buoyed by the fact that my money would support WaterAid I bid feverishly and won. Next came the dilemma of deciding to whom I should dedicate my personalized poem.

Better men may have been tempted to dedicate such a unique gift to their wives. Or gift it to their children for future generations to enjoy. Not me. There was only ever one recipient I wanted my poem to focus on, and that is Isle. Isle is the specialist technical consultancy for which I have been Chairman since it formed in 2010. Today Isle employs 60 people, spread across 8 locations around the world. Our goal is simple: to help the water sector embrace and adopt new technology. I love Isle.

Forget Starlight Express, this could be the start of ‘Isle The Musical’

The fact that 48 hours previously I had been in Haiti with 7 of my Isle colleagues participating in the 5^th annual 10km sea swim probably also shaped my decision. As has been recorded in these blogs previously, Isle has strong links with Haiti. This year the Isle team was raising money for Watering Minds, who provide clean water to local schools. $13k has been raised to date by the Isle team, which will ensure over 2600 children get clean water for the next year. Donations can still be made (https://fundraise.wateringminds.org/campaign/swim-for-haiti-2018-watering-minds/c157801). Highlights are here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1niWoU1FHr-xnA--zk_XjTEHwTVT1Ifdt/view?usp=sharing.

Quite by chance this year I discovered the secret to having a successful swim. Once the initial horn is blown all the swimmers disperse very quickly and it can become a very long, very lonely and very gruelling event. This year, after about 2km I spotted another swimmer 20 yards ahead of me. It was a lady about my age, powering her way through the sea. I was immediately taken back 30 years to when I first met my wife at our local swimming club. I would chase her down the pool, trying to keep up. I locked into the same mind-set, imagined that she was my wife and that I was once more a hormonal 17 year old chasing the woman of my dreams through the water. The remaining miles just melted away and we crossed the finish line together, achieving personal bests of 2 hours and 54 minutes. Admittedly this is 30 minutes behind the winner, but he was a man called Diego and had the distinct advantage of having been born with both gills and fins.

When I shared with my new swimming partner, whom I had been chasing for the previous 2 hours, that my mental strategy had been to fantasize that she was my wife, she gave me a look that could only be interpreted as ‘Step back Wierdo. You are a creep’. Somehow the deeply romantic angle to my strategy, which had seemed so righteous at the time, got lost in the telling. My wife seemed equally unimpressed. Apparently chasing other women is always wrong. Always. Period.  

I may need to rethink to whom my poem is dedicated.

 ¹ For readers not familiar with The Gherkin it is an iconic London building, so named for its uncanny resemblance to a small pickled cucumber. Other London landmarks named after fish and chip accompianments include the Curry Sauce Interchange and Pickled Egg Circus.

No 172: How should a real Jedi Master treat their sewage?

Anyone who has seen the recent Star Wars movie can´t fail to have noticed the scene where the Rebel heroes are trapped in a sticky situation on the Death Star and conveniently escape through a man-entry sewer. I love the idea that, across the universe, sewage is captured via a capex-heavy water-based collection system.  I particularly like the idea that Darth Vader defecates: I imagine him going into a toilet cubicle, removing his mask and carefully hanging his long black cape on the back of the toilet door, being extra diligent to not to let it touch the floor (for obvious reasons, ….well, for anyone who has been in a male public toilet that is). I imagine him squatting down to business, just like every other human. Imperial Overlord or not, when nature calls, you answer.

Sewage treatment on the Death Star is, I assume, via a UASB¹ (since conventional aeration-based systems would be prohibitively uneconomic due to the lack of oxygen in space). The biosolids generated must surely be treated via SCWO² , as this would enable them to recover and reuse the precious water in the sludge. This would not be a cheap solution, but the one thing everyone knows about the Imperial Empire is they are not short of cash. Just look at how much they spend on their fancy suits.

For the Rebel Alliance however such gold plated treatment would be uneconomical. Fortunately the Alliance tend to be based on green lush planets where land availability is not an issue. The exception to this is obviously the ice planet Hoth (see Empire Strikes Back), but who wouldn’t want to live on Takodana (‘I have never seen so much green’ – Rey). Having space and sunshine creates treatment opportunities that the evil Empire simply cannot entertain on their dark and foreboding Death Star.  

Back in 2016 I had the honour of presenting a paper at the IWA conference on the conversion of wastewater to energy via the production of algae (see Note, No 154). I was not presenting work that I had done personally but rather I was a last minute stand-in for my good friend Frank Rogalla (Director of Innovation at Aqualia). There is nothing I enjoy more than stealing the limelight, but doing it legitimately for once only made it sweeter.  Earlier this week I met with Frank in Madrid for an update on the project.

Aqualia, as part of the ‘All-Gas’ project within the EU FP 7, have built a 2 hectare demonstration facility which can treat the sewage of 10,000 people. It is a thing of beauty. No odour and fantastically low power usage (0.15kWh/m3, compared to conventional nutrient removal methods which are typically 3 times this). It is actually a significant net energy generator – each ha (the surface of one football field) can provide fuel for 20 cars. Compared to conventional biofuels (eg Palm-oil-diesel, or sugarcane-ethanol) this is 4 times better. For more details please click: https://we.tl/pzcOTIakRC

Unlike other algae biofuel projects the AllGas team have kept the process gloriously simple, not complicating it with specialist algae species or the extraction of unique oils. Instead the AllGas project, as the name implies, simply grows whatever algae is naturally occurring, harvests it, and then converts it to biogas via a conventional anaerobic digester – while achieving free nutrient removal. The innate simplicity of the system is part of its beauty. No wonder it is the obvious treatment method of choice for the Rebel Alliance. Bearing in mind all the environmental and economic benefits you would think the Alliance would make a bigger noise about it but, apparently, in space no one can hear you scream (oops, wrong film).

Sadly Star Wars is not the only Hollywood movie to get confused about sanitation systems. The 1990s film ‘Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves’ has a scene near the start (where Kevin Costner first bonds with Morgan Freeman) where they escape from a medieval dungeon in an ancient Middle Eastern city via a Victorian sewer. It even has a manhole cover for crying out loud. I am tempted to conclude that powerful Hollywood moguls rate storytelling above the accurate representation of sanitation practices. Surely not?!

I feel the need to create a definitive list of water sector miss-representations in major films. When I finally get to meet Spielberg, Lucas and Nolan I will ensure they stand corrected. All suggestions welcomed. 

Note 1: UASB = Upflow Anerobic Sludge Blanket;

Note 2: SCWO – Super Critical Wet Oxidation)