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Ostara Nutrient Recovery Technologies
What they do:
“Valuable waste” might seem like an oxymoron. Not with Ostara. Ostara’s wastewater treatment systems extract nutrients like phosphorus from wastewater, using the nutrients to make fertilizer. The fertilizer is then sold, generating revenue for municipalities in the process. Oh, and did we mention that extracting these nutrients from the wastewater prevents the water from clogging up pipes in treatment facilities (a common problem)? Well, it does. Valuable, indeed.
Why it’s cool:
To make fertilizer, you need phosphorus. But the phosphorus supply is dwindling, and the normal way of making phosphorus fertilizer is an environmental no-no: it requires a whole lot of energy and releases a whole lot of greenhouse gases. By “mining” phosphorus from wastewater, Ostara is making the existing supply last longer and reducing carbon emissions. Plus,the fertilizer created is specially formulated not to pollute other bodies of water with agricultural run-off. +1 for wastewater, +1 for Ostara, +1 for the environment.
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