National

Sustainability First: Wastewater, The Warning Signs

NASSAU, BAHAMAS – A recent modeling study found that the world’s coastal waters take on around 6.2 million tons of nitrogen per year from our wastewater.

Published

2 years ago

April 20, 2023

Marlena Leonard

NASSAU, BAHAMAS – A recent modeling study found that the world’s coastal waters take on around 6.2 million tons of nitrogen per year from our wastewater.

An imbalance in nitrogen can cause things like algal blooms, and in worst case scenarios, ocean dead zones.

Coral reefs are already an extremely sensitive habitat, susceptible to many of the consequences of climate change, and more nitrogen only further weakens the systems which absorb around one third of the carbon dioxide from fossil fuels.

And, we aren’t exempt here in The Bahamas, when environmentalists express concern for new projects’ waste management methods, it’s because they’re already seeing the signs.

Marine biologist and founder of Earthcare, Gail Woon explains.

While you may think the solution would be larger, centralized infrastructure, some environmentalists would beg to differ, arguing if waste can be treated and purified on the property that it came from, the property can be recycled for non-drinkable needs like gardening and flushing.

Co-Founder and CEO of Epic Cleantec, Aaron Tartakovsky, compares it to how the culture has changed around solar power, saying “just as rooftop solar and distributed power generation helped to decentralize the electric grid, we believe that onsite water reuse can make water infrastructure more resilient. We’re simply 10-15 years behind the energy folks.”