🧻 Do you roll smart or roll wild?

Did you know that the average European uses about 100 toilet paper rolls annually? Americans use even more: 140 rolls per person. In China, 50 rolls are used per person, but their total consumption stretches over 6.5 billion km, which, from a NASA perspective, means that the length of this ‘unrolled toilet paper’ is almost one and a half times the distance between the Earth and Neptune 🚀
While toilet paper is a convenience, remember that water is a more effective and sustainable option for hygiene 🌊🌱

⚠️ THE IMPACT

Toilet paper doesn’t just disappear:

· 💧 A major pollutant: It constitutes a significant fraction of insoluble materials in residential wastewater.

· ⚡️ Higher energy demand: During wastewater treatment, toilet paper fibers increase sludge production, leading to greater energy consumption and also treatment costs.
· 🌍 Environmental costs: A recent life-cycle assessment (LCA) shows that advanced recovery technologies can reduce energy use by 8.57% and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 9.46% during treatment processes. (Source: Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 2023).

🎯 THE SOLUTION

By adopting innovative technologies, such as fine sieving systems, we can:

1. Reduce energy consumption: Sieving removes up to 70% of suspended solids before secondary treatment, significantly lowering aeration demands.

2. Decrease sludge volumes: Less sludge translates into reduced energy for handling and disposal.

3. Promote circular economy practices: Recovered cellulose fibers can be reused in various industries, including chemicals, bioplastics, building materials, and road construction, even back to the food chain as feed if well treated.

By bringing together several innovative technologies, Reframe aims to reduce the impact of treatment processes by exploiting cellulosic wastewater and bacterial metabolism to produce bio-based compounds such as platform chemicals, biopolymers and feed ingredients.

📊 TAKE-HOME MESSAGE

· 35-40% of suspended solids in wastewater are cellulose fibers from toilet paper.

· Sieving systems save 8.6 % more energy compared to traditional treatment by reducing the load on secondary processes! This means a large amount of money saved!

· Recovered fibers can serve as raw materials, replacing non-renewable resources.

#ReframeYourIdea #ToiletPaper ##WastewaterTreatment #CircularEconomy #ScienceForEveryone