Wastewater reuse in residential, institutional and commercial buildings in Canada

Goals for water and wastewater infrastructure over the 50 year timeframe are developed under the general goals of minimizing the negative impacts of energy use, maintaining the fertility of the food production base, and optimizing the ecological value of the water returned to the environment. [...] At the Water Centre in Calgary (2006), housing the city’s administration for water and sewer services, a wastewater treatment and reuse system was included in the first round of design, but the project manager needed to limit costs and construction time, so the final design included reuse of rainwater and water from the meter testing room only. [...] The treatment and reuse systems designed and installed by EcoWerks Technologies in 1999 and 2000 respectively, were put in place to extend the life of the leaching beds by reducing the volume and increasing the quality of the effluent discharged. [...] Lloyd Rozema of Aqua Treatment suggested the idea of reuse and the owner agreed that it was logical not to flush with drinking water and that it was an advantage to reduce the volume going to the leaching bed. [...] ENERGY The high amount of energy used in our current water and wastewater system is largely due to the inefficient use of water, the fact that water is heavy to pump and that electricity is required to blow air into wastewater for aerobic treatment (only the 21% oxygen component of air is valuable for treatment and oxygen has a low solubility in water).