Motivation

In developed and developing countries alike, more than 40% of the population live in industrialized urban areas. This number probably includes many iGEMers. Yet we seem to be living in a paradox that we often don't think about. How come we always consume pure, drinkable water, all the while sending non-usable water down the drain? Shouldn't we eventually run out of clean water? Perhaps even more importantly, what happens to the toxic water that we continuously expel? As it turns out, modern wastewater treatment techniques are sophisticated enough to purify water to a level where it can be reused for almost all purposes besides drinking: irrigation of crops and public parks, car washing, mixing concrete, and many other applications[ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reclaimed_water]¹. Much of this reclaimed water gets discharged into the environment (rivers; artificial or real lakes). Our team decided to delve a little deeper into the sewage treatment process to search for potential issues or improvements amenable to synthetic biology. And we spotted a big one.

Before we plunge into the details of our project, we must explore the murky waters of the secondary treatment process.