Posted by Louise Rainone on February 16th, 2011 in Uncategorized

Psychologists define perception as theprocess of attaining awareness or understandingof sensory information. Theadage “perception is truth” may not becompletely accurate, but when it comes tothe public’s perception of wastewater, thepublic doesn’t really want to think aboutit. They are darned sure, however, that they don’t want to drink it, nomatter how well it is cleaned. Despite the fact that NASA astronautsroutinely drink “recycled” water, the rest of us won’t do it…at leastfor now.As one who has helped to develop a system capable of transformingwastewater into completely potable water, two issues within thisrealm of perception have made my job of commercializing the technologymore of a challenge. The first is the commoditization of water,and the second is the hardheadedness of engineers.In this country at least, water is considered a commodity—freeand abundant, and especially cheap. The disposal of household wastewater,both black and gray, is perceived as more of a nuisance.Wastewateris an exceedingly unglamorous subject and most people don’twant to think about where it goes once they push down on the leverof the toilet. There is little thought about the cost of disposing ofwastewater, and hardly a notice for the price of clean water.This blissful ignorance is going to be short-lived, as readers ofthis magazine already know.We all know of the coming shortages:Las Vegas; all of California; New Mexico; South Texas; and most ofthe Southeast are all under duress right now. In the past few years,the green-blessed Southeastern region of the U.S. (I am thinking ofAtlanta specifically) has been regularly hit hard by droughts of seriousproportion. The Midwest and Great Lakes themselves haveshown that they are not immune to droughts. This is the reasonthat it is imperative to start changing industry and consumer perceptionsof the cost of quality drinking water and the impendingnecessity to get serious about “water recycling.”While I am not sanguine about our ability to get ahead of thecurve on this issue in the U.S., it can be done. A great example ofbreaking through perceptions is Singapore. Despite some negativeperceptions, Singapore is one of the most progressive countries in therealm of wastewater recycling and reuse. The reason for Singapore’sinsight and aggressive approach to water is fairly obvious—they havehad to face the fact that they are going to run out of water and arebeing forced to be progressive and proactive about this limited resource.Singapore currently imports 52-percent of its water fromMalaysia, of which two agreements with theMalaysians are slated toexpire in 2011 and 2016. Singapore understands that to move forward,they must work to make sure that their citizens and businesseshave the water required to survive and thrive.For the U.S., the natural abundance of cheap water has allowed usto ignore this coming problem, and until the crisis deepens few of uswill be willing to look past the “yuck factor” and realize we don’t havemuch of an alternative to deal with the notion of recycling. The otherimpediment to the adoption of innovation has been the naturallyconservative nature of wastewater engineers.In the past few years in the business of wastewater, there hasbeen an upswing in product and technology innovation. Fromsensing, control systems and energy efficient pumping, to enhancementsin processing techniques, the explosion of solutions for thevarious problems of water processing has been staggering. The developmentof an entirely bacterially-based wastewater treatment solutionsthat can produce absolutely potable water from black waterhas been met with suspicion.As one who has helped to develop this innovative technology, Iwas quite surprised by the initial lack of interest in what I perceived asa significant innovation. Frankly, I thought that with this upsurge ininnovation, the water processing world would be buzzing. From mylonely perch, I don’t think that buzzing is exactly how I would characterizethe current state of wastewater technology.Why is this? It all comes down to perception. No engineer, possiblybecause they are not properly immersed in biology, seems to believethat bioremediation can be a complete solution. They trust inpumps, aerators and chemical, but not inMother Nature. I will givecredit to a select few, on the other hand, who are ready to embrace thefuture when they see it. To quote a senior Ph.D., PE wastewater guruafter he saw our system (and coincidentally after we were recognizedby theWall Street Journal Technical Innovation awards this year), hesaid, “I would never have believed that a purely bacteria-based systemcould remove chlorides and nitrogen compounds as well as all of theorganic materials, had I not seen it with my own eyes.” I am happy toreport that while most engineers swear by the tried-and-true, a newgeneration of bacterially-based, alternative systems have begun to attractconfused interest from the engineering community.So we are left with this: Americans believe that their drinkingwater comes from a bubbling spring of purity that runs from theOzarkMountains of Arkansas or some such place, which is a far cryfrom the reality of where it originates from—the stream five milesfrom the paper mills, wastewater treatment plants, oil refineries, etc.When we finally all come to this epiphany, we will begin to make seriousprogress on our impending water shortages.Americans in general are scared: Scared of the unknown; scaredof the known; scared to try new things; and scared of change. Let’sbe honest with ourselves and realize that we know what will happenif we don’t innovate the state of the wastewater industry. Ourway of life will literally dry-up. That means no crops, no recreation,no lawns and no golf courses.Well, maybe golf courses.Mike Rainone is president and founder of ActiveWater SciencesInc., makers of an innovative new wastewater treatment system,and vice president and founder of sister company, PCDworks, Inc.,a technology development firm specializing in breakthroughproduct innovation.While initially majoring in physics, Rainone received a B.S.and M.S. in Clinical Psychology, and a Masters of Architecturefrom the University of Texas. He served as a graduate fellow inClinical Psychology at the University of North Texas, and held aDoctoral Research Fellowship in Cognitive Psychology at TexasChristian University. Early in his career Rainone taught subjects asdiverse as management and organizational behavior, research methodsand architectural design.While practicing architecture in theDetroit area, Rainone was invited to teach industrial design at theCollege for Creative Studies and soon moved into the field of newproduct development.With strong expertise in the process of product development, awide range of technical knowledge, and training in cognitive deconstructionof problems during development processes, Rainone hasbeen a creative force in the development of new products for leadingcompanies in the U.S. and in Europe, including Sunbeam; Kellogg’s;Avery Denison; Ingersoll-Rand; Kimberly Clark; Stanley Tools; BakerOil Tools and the U.S. Navy.To learn more about his companies, go to ActiveWater Sciences,Inc.’s website (www.activewatersciences.com) or(www.pcdworks.com