In May 2016 I had the pleasure of travelling to Europe to experience one of the largest tradeshows in the world dedicated solely to technologies in the water and wastewater world. It was held in Munich, Germany.
Europe, in most senses, is more “environmentally advanced” than most of our jurisdictions here in Canada. I believe its mainly due to the huge per-capita as compared to us; they have needed to be extra concerned about proper treatment for decades now.
I met with some very interesting companies providing new and exciting technologies… it might be an opportunity to bring some of these technologies to Canada and further improve our industry.
It was also very exciting to see how involved most of Europe is with the collection (and re-use) of rainwater. Here in Canada and USA there are very strict regulations about using rainwater (inside the home). Yet in Europe they have huge success with using rainwater for flushing toilets, doing laundry, etc. Let’s hope our regulators can get it figured out soon so that we can benefit from similar systems.
