MABA September 2022 Webinar

Beyond the Circular Economy: Framing Biosolids Recycling at The Food-Energy-Water Nexus

Member rate - $25, Non-member rate - $50.

Click here to register: https://maba.memberclicks.net/september_20_webinar

The circular economy (CE) paradigm is very nearly synonymous with principles of sustainability and with climate change mitigation and adaptation. Yet the reuse and recycling of water, energy, carbon and nutrients during the treatment of wastewater and biosolids is scarcely acknowledged in the CE literature. Biosolids practitioners ought to take on the mantle of the circular economy to gain the support of environmental leaders, rather than maintaining a quiet place to the side. We can do this by making compelling stories of today’s successes with resource recovery and drawing the connections to CE.

A wide variety of “movements” are branching out from the CE paradigm, and this transition affords our profession an opportunity to join them. These include the environmental fields of food waste recovery, urban agriculture, urban soil health, urban metabolism, green stormwater infrastructure, nature-based solutions to climate change, voluntary carbon markets for afforestation and community food-water-energy security. Each of these align with CE, and each plays a role in advancing the resilience of urban communities from effects of climate change. Importantly, biosolids resource recovery today is “getting the job done” in each of these aspects of CE.

This presentation will introduce the professional organizations active in these several fields, their principles for action and engagement and examples of current biosolids projects that fulfill the principles in each of these fields. Biosolids practitioners need now to take these examples into a wide world that is looking for good ideas of projects that respond to the urgent environmental crises of today, and not keep these successes to ourselves.

Speaker: Bill Toffey, Effluential Synergies, LLC

 
Bill has over 40 years’ experience in municipal wastewater, environmental and energy management. He is the principal of Effluential Synergies LLC, a sustainable residuals consultancy, and until the beginning of 2022 served as the Executive Director of the Mid Atlantic Biosolids Association, a trade group that covers seven states and supports an industry with 800 biosolids generators and 1,800 biosolids practitioners. For 20 years prior to this position, he managed biosolids operations for the Philadelphia Water Department. During his career he has authored over 75 papers and presentations to a range of local, national, and international technical audiences, which includes operator training manuals and programs. Over the past seven years, he has authored 120 monthly biosolids reports to MABA members. Bill graduated from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University and has a Masters of Regional Planning degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He is active in national and international professional organizations.

Click here to register: https://maba.memberclicks.net/september_20_webinar