Cycleau

A compact greywater treatment system designed to advance household resiliency to public water contaminants while reducing the impacts of sewage pollution on local waterways.

In post-industrial cities across the United States, the effects of aging water and wastewater infrastructure are affecting rates of public health by increasing mortality and the spread of disease. Water distribution mains built in the last century made of lead and copper have caused drinking water crises in cities including Flint, Michigan and Newark, New Jersey, where the presence of contaminants in household water supplies has posed an immediate threat to the health and safety of local residents. Wastewater infrastructure built at the same time has also become undersized proportionate to population levels in multiple U.S. cities, and the excess of wastewater generated by residential and commercial buildings has caused a pattern of sewage overflows into local waterways that now poses a threat to the health of regional aquatic ecosystems. Each of these systemic challenges stems from a lack of technological diversification in municipal water infrastructure, the decentralization of which may allow for greater investment and engagement by stakeholders in maintaining the health of local water systems. 

Across the United States, it is estimated that approximately 7.2 million Americans become sick from waterborne disease each year, largely as an effect of contamination in public water supplies(1). In 2021, approximately 268 chemicals were identified in municipal water supplies across the country by the Environmental Working Group, which is nearly three times the 90-some drinking water contaminants the USEPA regulates(2). In post-industrial cities, these safety concerns have been magnified by a pattern of limited public investment in water infrastructure combined with overall declining economic revenue and population loss. Crises involving lead and copper in drinking water have predominantly impacted low-income communities of color, while public corruption in some cities such as Flint have further stagnated any efforts to overhaul local water piping systems. In these urban areas, expanding opportunities for point-of-use water treatment can be a viable means to protecting residents from the contaminants that may derive from aging distribution mains.

At the same time, increasing rates of wastewater generation are threatening aquatic ecosystems in the U.S., driving a vicious cycle that impacts both human and environmental health. The average American uses approximately 80 to 100 gallons of water each day, with national daily usage estimated at more than 345 billion gallons(3). Just as aging water infrastructure is underfunded, antiquated wastewater infrastructure is as equally incapable of managing these rising rates of wastewater generation, which has led to a pattern of increasing sewage overflows in many urban waterways. By 2022, 40% of all lakes in the U.S. were deemed unsafe for swimming or fishing, creating adverse impacts both on local aquatic wildlife and on the welfare of proximate human communities(4). Advancing water reuse as a resource-saving measure is consequently becoming increasing more critical in order to protect both the users and stakeholders of our national water resources.

Sources

1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2023, www.cdc.gov/healthywater/surve... . 
2. Environmental Health News. 2021, www.ehn.org/drinking-water-pol... 
3. National Geographic. 2020, www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/partner-content-americas-looming-water-crisis.
4. GlobeWater. 2022, https://www.globewater.org/facts/water-pollution-statistics/

Cycleau is a compact greywater treatment system designed to retrofit below sinks to capture and treat greywater for potable water reuse applications. The hardware unit, which is sized at approximately 24 inches by 36 inches, connects to the drain pipe and water supply lines which remain exposed below most sinks to redirect incoming municipal water supplies through a point-of-use treatment system that removes public water contaminants, while also collecting greywater for immediate treatment and purification to potable standards. To provide clean water, Cycleau serves as a point-of-use treatment system where water can be filtered and purified immediately before it’s consumed. To reduce sewage pollution, it directly reduces the size of a building’s wastewater footprint by capturing a fraction of greywater for on-site reuse applications, while also treating all other wastewater before it leaves the building to prevent household contaminants from entering the local aquatic ecosystem. 

Cycleau operates by way of a comprehensive, five-stage wastewater treatment system. Greywater first passes through a coagulation chamber, where a chemical coagulant such as aluminum sulphate is added to water supplies to attract and coagulate suspended particles. Physical particles are then filtered through a bed media chamber where media such as activated carbon, fine sand, and drainage gravel capture particulate matter in wastewater. Water is then treated by three stages of membrane filtration, including microfiltration, ultrafiltration, and nanofiltration. Water is then disinfected by UV irradiation and purified by advanced oxidation, which effectively eliminates all bacteria and pathogens remaining in water. These stages mirror the processes used in municipal wastewater treatment plants; however, Cycleau is designed using elements of modularity to scale the hardware needed for these stages to fit the specifications of a below-sink treatment system which is not larger than two feet by three feet.

Who we serve: The unique water access needs of low-income residents in post-industrial U.S. cities

Cycleau is designed to meet the water management needs of residents in post-industrial cities located primarily in the northeast United States, including but not limited to Flint, Michigan; Cleveland, Ohio; Newark, New Jersey; Baltimore, Maryland; and the outer boroughs of New York City, such as Brooklyn and The Bronx. In these municipalities, federal investment in public water and wastewater infrastructure has declined steadily since the 1970s as part of the global transition towards a neoliberal political economy. 

The geography of the Northeast United States contributes several specific factors which have made water management particularly challenging with divestment: first, that the northeast was among the first settled regions of North America means that local public infrastructure is generally older and produced using obsolete materials, such as lead and copper, at higher rates than other parts of the U.S. Second, multiple cities within this region excelled in the 20th century as producers for the industrial economy, with cities including Flint and Baltimore becoming well-known as manufacturing hubs for consumer goods such as automobiles and home appliances. Following neoliberal globalization, much of this economic activity was outsourced to other countries at the expense of domestic work opportunities, leaving parts of this region to become known as the “Rust Belt” for its increased numbers of abandoned factories and production facilities now common in parts of the northeast. Finally, the climate of the Northeast United States frequently has high levels of rainfall and multiple significant waterbodies surrounding major cities, including the Hudson River running alongside New York and New Jersey, and the Great Lakes bordering Detroit and Cleveland. The high levels of stormwater that can be generated by increasing rainfall necessitate stronger wastewater management practices in local urban centers, but recent progress through government intervention has been limited.

These multiple trends have created a series of water infrastructure management challenges that has resulted in a dire need for an accessible diversification of wastewater treatment systems. This begins with the drastic loss in water quality in many post-industrial cities which still use lead and copper pipes for drinking water distribution, or which run on combined sewer systems that overflow into local waterways. Lead and copper pipes installed prior to 1991 are at high risk of leaching dangerous contaminants, including neurotoxins, into water supplies as an effect of their age and materiality(1). In cities such as Flint, Michigan and Newark, New Jersey, this has resulted in significant crises of high lead levels in drinking water that have posed serious dangers to local residents’ health. At the same time, high rates of wastewater generation and rainfall in these municipalities has caused a rising rate of combined sewer overflows in cities such as New York City and Baltimore, where excess wastewater has been cited as among the leading causes of waterway pollution. In New York, up to 25% of the public sewer system overflows into local waterways such as the Gowanus Canal and the East River, creating a toxic ecosystem for local aquatic wildlife and preventing residents’ access to waterfront recreation activities(2). In Baltimore, sewage backups have even caused damage to residential buildings, as in 2016 there were up to 7500 reports of sewage overflows into homeowners’ basements(3). Still to this day, a combination of divestment and corruption in local governments has prevented an overhaul of lead water pipes and combined sewer systems in several post-industrial cities, creating an urgent need for a consumer-driven diversification of water treatment options that can be adopted by homeowners outside of the public water distribution system.

By taking these systemic challenges into account, our target population is the low-income residents of post-industrial U.S. cities, who are most at risk of living in municipalities with lead and copper drinking water pipes and in the proximity of combined sewer overflows which can impact their access to clean waterways. These residents are not only vulnerable to receiving poor quality drinking water as an effect of public contamination, but they are also most overburdened by rising rates of water utility costs in many post-industrial cities where divestment has resulted in the privatization and increasing cost per person of water utilities. 

Our impact: How Cycleau is positioned to diversify access to clean water for low-income residents in post-industrial U.S. cities

Having identified the systems that currently limit equitable access to clean water in post-industrial U.S. cities, we designed Cycleau to provide a low-cost, accessible water treatment system for households that could achieve the following functions:

1. Integrate a point-of-use water treatment system to treat incoming municipal water for any dangerous contaminants including lead, copper, nitrate, total coliforms, cryptosporidium, legionella, and Giardia lamblia, among many others. By having water treated within the household right before it’s used — at the point of use, instead of the point of source — residents can be protected against poor quality water that might be impacted by underfunded water distribution infrastructure.
2. Directly reduce the wastewater footprint of a household by capturing and recycling a fraction of greywater for immediate treatment to potable standards, where it can then be reused within the household instead of sent to a wastewater treatment plant or dumped in a local waterway. By recycling greywater within households, public wastewater distribution systems will be less burdened, and overflow rates will decrease as a direct function of reduced sewage outputs. This will improve the overall quality and health of local waterways, allowing aquatic wildlife to thrive while increasing accessible to waterways for recreational use by residents.
3. Reduce water utility costs for homeowners by decreasing their household water inputs and outputs as a direct function of the rate of wastewater recycling achieved by Cycleau. Because Cycleau is designed to capture and reuse greywater on-site, residents will be able to decrease the amount of water they use from municipal providers as well as how much wastewater they generate as sewage outputs. This will lead to a direct reduction in their water and wastewater utility costs, which can support low-income residents currently overburdened by high utility rates in post-industrial cities.

Sources

1. "Lead and Copper Rule." US EPA, 30 Nov. 2022, www.epa.gov/dwreginfo/lead-and... 
2. Kensinger, Nathan. "NYC has a plan to clean its sewage-filled waterways. Does it go far enough?" Curbed NY, 20 Feb. 2020. https://ny.curbed.com/2020/2/20/21144943/new-york-water-combined-sewer-overflow-dep-plan  
3. Dance, S. (2016, May 14). Sewage soiling thousands of city basements, but another decade of repairs looms. The Baltimore Sun.

This project has been directed and coordinated by our principal investigator, Noemi Florea, in partnership with a large number of stakeholders in post-industrial U.S. cities and supporting engineers who have contributed to the applications, design, and mechanics of Cycleau. Our wide network of contributors allows for a comprehensive and multidisciplinary approach that ensures Cycleau will respond to the gaps and constraints of water infrastructure management across domains of policy, economics, technology, and social justice. More information on the backgrounds of our contributors is below:

Noemi Florea, principal investigator

Our team’s principal investigator, Noemi Florea, has been investigating the challenges concerning water infrastructure in post-industrial U.S. cities for three years, having begun her work in 2020 during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic augmented the vulnerabilities low-income residents face in receiving basic public resources such as clean water and energy, which first inspired Noemi to begin collaborating with local residents in her home state of Maryland to develop an alternative technology that could improve access to clean water while reducing the levels of waste also augmented during the pandemic. Noemi began this project by interviewing residents in Baltimore, Maryland who had witnessed firsthand the disparities in water access that existed between low- and high-income neighborhoods in this distinctly post-industrial city; she also later expanded her research to account for similar experiences faced by residents in other post-industrial cities including Flint, Michigan and Cleveland, Ohio, and eventually traveled to these cities to work closely with local activists who were engaged with these same issues. These interviews and collaborative interactions laid the foundation for how Cycleau would be designed as a consumer-driven intervention to a growing need for water infrastructure diversification in underfunded U.S. cities. 

In 2021, Noemi moved to Brooklyn, New York to attend university in-person at The New School, and began volunteering with community-based organizations in neighborhoods where clean water access was limited by the challenges she had researched in other post-industrial cities; these neighborhoods included Gowanus, Brooklyn and Mott Haven, South Bronx. These volunteer experiences allowed her to form vital relationships with local activists and researchers who could contribute to and advise on how Cycleau was designed as a technology solution to these infrastructural challenges.

Noemi is currently in her final year of receiving two degrees from The New School in New York City, including a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Integrated Design and Sustainable Cities from Parsons School of Design and a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Studies with a minor in Economics. Her wide range of academic interests have allowed her to apply a multidisciplinary approach to identifying the political, economic, and technological challenges of water infrastructure management in post-industrial U.S. cities, and she has particularly leveraged her interests in participatory action research to achieve a collaborative and integrative method of project development that closely incorporates the needs and perspectives of Cycleau’s stakeholders. In 2022, Noemi founded LÆRO, a multidisciplinary design studio specializing in participatory design practices to build on her experiences in co-designing product and technology solutions such as Cycleau with the stakeholders of her work.

Contributing stakeholders and advisors

Multiple residents and activists of post-industrial U.S. have contributed to and advised on how Cycleau is designed to meet the gaps and constraints of local water infrastructure management. Our contributing stakeholders include:

• Melissa Mays, activist and founder of Water You Fighting For (Flint, Michigan)
• Nayyirah Shariff, activist and co-founder of the Flint Democracy Defense League (Flint, Michigan)
• Monica Lewis-Patrick, executive director of We the People of Detroit (Detroit, Michigan)
• Yvette Jordan, chair of NEW Caucus (Newark, New Jersey)
• Amy Goldsmith, NJ State Director at Clean Water Action (Newark, New Jersey)
• Maria Lopez-Nuñez, Deputy Director of Organizing and Advocacy at Ironbound Community Corporation (Newark, New Jersey)
• Gary Brune, Senior Policy Manager at NJ Future (Newark, New Jersey)
• Peter Chen, Senior Policy Analyst at New Jersey Policy Perspective (Newark, New Jersey)
• Pastor Mark James, Barnes Memorial Church (Baltimore, Maryland)
• Rianna Eckel, Senior Organizer at Food & Water Watch (Baltimore, Maryland)
• Mary Hughes, resident (Baltimore, Maryland)
• Molly Amster, Maryland Policy Director at Jews United for Justice (Baltimore, Maryland)
• Pearl Chen, coordinator of Utilities for All (Cleveland, Ohio)
• Larry Bresler, executive director of Organize! Ohio (Cleveland, Ohio)
• Brian Mallory, community organizer at Organize! Ohio (Cleveland, Ohio)
• Don Bryant, activist and resident (Cleveland, Ohio)
• Joseph Meissner, attorney (Cleveland, Ohio)
• Owen Foote, co-founder of Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club (Brooklyn, New York)
• Arif Ullah, executive director of South Bronx Unite (The Bronx, New York)
• Christian Braneon, co-director of the Environmental Justice & Climate Just Cities Network at Columbia Climate School (New York, New York)
• Paul Gallay, project director of the Resilient Coastal Communities Project at the Center for Sustainable Urban Development at Columbia Climate School (New York, New York)
• Jackie Klopp, co-director of the Center for Sustainable Urban Development at Columbia Climate School (New York, New York)

Contributing engineers

Multiple engineers have contributed to and advised on the mechanics, construction, and manufacturing of this project as it involves water treatment processes and product automation. Our team’s engineers and engineering advisors include:

• Alex Serrat, controls engineer
• Girish Malage, industrial designer and engineer
• Maurel Aza-Gnandji, electrical engineering professor
• Nancy Choi, project director at Natural Systems Utilities
• Kevin Leddy, civil engineer
• Yunus Kovankaya, civil engineer

Our principal investigator, Noemi Florea, has a background specializing in participatory action research and integrative design methods for stakeholder engagement, and this has allowed our team to develop Cycleau with our stakeholders’ needs placed intentionally at the core of the design process. Since beginning the project in 2020, Noemi has spent significant amounts of time interviewing and building relationships with the residents of post-industrial U.S. cities including Baltimore, Maryland; Flint, Michigan; Cleveland, Ohio, Newark, New Jersey; and the outer boroughs of New York City including Brooklyn and The Bronx. She has done this through a combination of volunteering and investigative reporting that has enabled her to gain both a high-level understanding of our stakeholders’ priorities while also conducting targeted research on water infrastructure management challenges.

Early research: Building relationships with residents and activists in Baltimore, Maryland

Having grown up in Maryland, Noemi already had a strong network in Baltimore, which served as the first post-industrial development context for this project. She began her research by participating in organized events hosted by Food and Water Watch, where she was connected with other residents and activists who shared the same specific interest in water infrastructure management. This led her to volunteer with Barnes Memorial Church, where she connected with Pastor Mark James who helped pass the state of Maryland’s first legislation prohibiting property liens from being placed on households in debt on water utilities. These early experiences shaped how water affordability would be considered in the core functions of Cycleau.

Expanding the project scope: Targeted research in Flint, Michigan and Cleveland, Ohio

By 2021, Noemi had also interviewed activists in Flint, Michigan and Cleveland, Ohio remotely, and she later traveled to those cities that year to volunteer with the activists she had met as a way of gaining a deeper understanding of the needs and priorities of residents there. One of her key partners in Cleveland, the community-based organization Utilities for All, helped connect her with local residents and activists who contributed closely to the design and applications of Cycleau; these included the group’s coordinator, Pearl Chen, local organizers Larry Bresler and Brian Mallory, and policy experts Don Bryant and Joseph Meissner. By expanding her network to Cleveland and Flint, Noemi was able to draw connections between what she had observed in Baltimore and the ongoing patterns in other post-industrial cities. In 2023, Noemi’s studio LÆRO also began a collaboration with We the People of Detroit, a community coalition in Michigan, to conduct targeted research on the impacts of lead piping in the Detroit metropolitan region. These experiences further shaped Cycleau’s development context, adding multiple layers to the problem definition as it concerned water quality and affordability. 

Applying early findings: Collaborations in the New York Region

In fall 2021, Noemi moved to Brooklyn, New York as her university courses resumed in-person at The New School campus in Manhattan. She moved to the neighborhood of Gowanus, Brooklyn, which has a notorious history as the home of the former superfund site the Gowanus Canal, which used to receive toxic waste dumping from manufacturers lining the waterfront in Gowanus and Red Hook. While living in Gowanus, Noemi began volunteering with neighborhood organizations including the Gowanus Dredgers and the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, where she began to incorporate the city’s sewage overflow challenge into the design and applications of Cycleau. Though the Gowanus Canal is no longer a superfund site, it still receives a high number of combined sewer overflows during periods of heavy rainfall, which contributes to its ongoing levels of toxicity for local wildlife. Noemi worked closely with one of the co-founders of the Gowanus Dredgers, architect Owen Foote, to plan for how Cycleau would be designed to capture and recycle greywater as a function of reducing the wastewater footprint — and hence sewage output — of local households. 

During that period, Noemi also began volunteering with South Bronx Unite, a community-based organization in the Mott Haven neighborhood of The Bronx, to learn more about the local context and priorities of this key neighborhood for the environmental justice movement. In her work with South Bronx Unite, Noemi piloted an economic study which examined the economic feasibility of the organization’s community-driven waterfront park proposal, the Mott Haven-Port Morris Waterfront Plan, when compared against the potential long-term damages that would be incurred by a major storm surge. Multiple researchers and key stakeholders in local sustainable development contributed to this study, including Dr. Christian Braneon, the co-director of the Environmental Justice & Climate Just Cities Network at Columbia Climate School; Paul Gallay, the project director of the Resilient Coastal Communities Project at the Center for Sustainable Urban Development at Columbia Climate School; and Jackie Klopp, the co-director of the Center for Sustainable Urban Development at Columbia Climate School. Through this collaborative study, Noemi was also able to incorporate the perspective of these researchers into how Cycleau would be designed to improve waterway resiliency in low-income neighborhoods such as the South Bronx. She also volunteered for a period of time with community organizations in Newark, New Jersey, to better understand how this post-industrial city responded to its lead in drinking water crisis of 2018 - 2019.

In the academic year of 2021 to 2022, Noemi wrote and developed two thesis projects for her BA and BFA degrees which built on these real-life observations of water infrastructure management from a political-economic perspective and design perspective, respectively. Her BA thesis, titled “And Water Justice for All: Equitable Planning for Water Utilities in U.S. Cities,” responded to the research question “What economic and policy-planning models can be implemented in post-industrial U.S. cities to enable investment in infrastructure upgrades to preserve water quality while maintaining water utility affordability and accessibility for local residents?” Her BFA thesis presented a final conceptual model of Cycleau technology, which is now being prototyped and validated. 

Each of these experiences, driven by a combination of volunteering, relationship-building, and targeted research, has contributed to a multifaceted understanding of how Cycleau can meet the needs of vulnerable populations through a diversification of water treatment systems in households. Multiple activists and researchers who have studied such challenges for years or decades advised on this project while contributing design inputs that shaped what the applications and mechanics of this technology would ultimately be.

In researching previous developments regarding both clean water access for post-industrial U.S. cities as well as improving stormwater management in urban centers, we identified several existing technologies which Cycleau improves and builds upon based on gaps users reported. 

First regarding access to clean water, we identified a wide range of portable water filters and household water treatment devices that had previously been deployed in cities such as Flint and Newark to provide what would be a “band-aid” solution to a systemic crisis of water contamination. In speaking with the users of such products, we found that usability was a critical issue with many such filters, as users could often forget to change the cartridge of their water filter - in effect risking exposure to contaminants - or to replace membrane filters on wastewater systems, thereby risking equipment failure as an effect of brine build-up. Additionally, portable filters were often viewed as a “cheap” and “flimsy” alternative to infrastructure upgrades for lead and copper pipes, which could cost up to millions of dollars and take multiple years or decades to complete. Consequently, we aimed to develop a technology that was situated between emergency relief and an infrastructural overhaul, and which would instead diversify existing water treatment systems through technological decentralization. 

Then considering existing interventions for stormwater management, we identified a number of large-scale urban planning and architectural proposals that were at least partially implemented in several cities; these included stormwater drainage cisterns, green infrastructure such as green roofs and constructed wetlands, and household greywater systems. Because our interest lies principally in consumer-driven interventions which can be deployed more rapidly than public projects, we chose to focus on innovations regarding greywater systems which could optimize water and wastewater resources within private buildings. At this point, we identified that the lack of financial return inherent to most greywater systems today could be a critical limiting factor for how much impact this type of technology would have in the coming decades. Because current greywater systems require households to be repiped to merge new connections between sink drains and toilets or outdoor irrigation, they are only financially accessible to buildings that are being newly constructed or completely renovated. The average homeowner living in a pre-existing structure would not receive a return through utility savings on renovating for a costly whole-building greywater system, and this was significantly limiting the presence of greywater systems in most existing households across the United States. Such concerns regarding the financial accessibility of greywater systems were particularly relevant to the low-income residents of post-industrial cities, where up to 40% of the population in cities such as Detroit and Baltimore lives below the Federal Poverty Line.

As an effect, one of our guiding points of innovation was designing a household greywater system that would be affordable to a low-income family. To do so, we prioritized passive design and a compact equipment size to reduce costs. We also examined where in the household could greywater equipment be retrofitted without removing walls or flooring to enhance the accessibility of the installation process. We scoped out typical household plumbing blueprints to identify where in a household are water and wastewater supply pipes close enough in proximity that they could be joined without affecting the rest of the household piping. We found that by connecting water supply lines and drain pipes below the sink, shower, or laundry machine, we could effectively redirect water flows into a compact treatment system without affecting any part of the building’s structural integrity. 

With each of these factors in mind, we ultimately designed Cycleau to operate as both a stand-alone piece of equipment as well as one that integrates into a household’s preexisting water infrastructure, with connections available for supply lines and drain pipes that may already be in use. Our technology keenly innovates on existing water treatment system design by adopting a modular construction that allows what were once exclusively municipal-scale systems to be reconfigured into a compact equipment piece capable of fitting below the average sink or wash basin. Cycleau’s ability to capture and treat greywater is a key innovation in how it provides a household appliance for treating used water to a potable standard. This alone allows households across the U.S. to immediately reduce their water footprint by making greywater systems accessible, cost-effective, and easy to install.

Goal one: Quantify and validate the removal efficiencies of the Cycleau greywater treatment system against the 92 drinking water contaminants regulated by the USEPA

As we are currently developing a working model of the Cycleau greywater treatment system that is capable of automated wastewater processing, our first impact goal for 2023 is to validate our model by testing for the system’s removal efficiencies against all 92 drinking water contaminants that are regulated by the USEPA. These contaminants include different types of particulate matter, organic pollutants, and chemical and pharmaceutical contaminants. By validating the technological feasibility of our system, we aim to pioneer the growing movement towards wastewater reuse in the U.S. and around the world as the makers of the world’s first household drinking water reuse system. We intend to achieve this goal through a combination of in-house and outsourced water sample testing done both with testing equipment our team has already acquired as well as through our partnerships with local EPA-certified labs that can test samples for specific contaminants at a small fee.

Timeline

May - June 2023 

• • Complete prototyping for an automated model of the Cycleau greywater treatment system
  • Acquire portable testing equipment for the first eight contaminants of concern
  • Coordinate acquisition of greywater samples spanning geographic areas, time of day, and potential rates of contamination
  • Test greywater samples for the following eight contaminants: total coliform, turbidity, nitrate, dissolved oxygen, total dissolved solids, pH, biochemical oxygen demand, phosphorus

July - December 2023

• • Establish contractual partnership(s) with EPA-certified NYCDEP water sample testing facilities
  • Coordinate acquisition of greywater samples spanning geographic areas, time of day, and potential rates of contamination
  • Outsource testing for the following contaminants: Cryptosporidium, Giardia lamblia, heterotrophic plate count, legionella, enteric viruses, bromate, halo acetic acids, total trihalomethanes, arsenic, copper, lead, acrylamide, alachlor, benzene, benzo(a)pyrene, carbon tetrachloride, chlordane, 1,2-Dibromo-3-chloropropane, 1,2-Dichloroethylene, dichloromethane, 1,2-Dichloropropane, Di (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, dioxin, epichlorohydrin, ethylene dibromide, heptachlor, heptachlor epoxide, hexachlorobenezene, polychlorinated biphenyls, pentachlorophenol, picloram, tetrachloroethylene, toxaphene, trichloroethylene, vinyl chloride, alpha particles, beta particles and photon emitters, radium 226 and radium 228 (combined), and uranium

January - May 2024

• • Coordinate acquisition of greywater samples spanning geographic areas, time of day, and potential rates of contamination
  • Outsource testing for the following contaminants: chlorite, chloramines, chlorine, chlorine dioxide, antimony, asbestos, barium, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, cyanide, fluoride, mercury, nitrite, selenium, thallium, atrazine, carbofuran, chlorobenzene, 2,4-D, dalapon, o-dichlorobenzene, p-dichlorobenzene, cis-1,2-dichloroethylene, 1,1-dichloroethylene, trans-1,2-dichloroethylene, di(2-ethylhexyl) adipate, dinoseb, diquat, endothall, endrin, ethylbenzene, glyphosate, hexachlorocyclopentadiene, lindane, methoxychlor, oxamyl, simazine, styrene, toluene, silvex, 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, 1,1,2-trichloroethane, and xylenes

Goal two: Deploy a pilot program of three Cycleau greywater treatment systems with volunteer partners from three post-industrial U.S. cities to test the effectiveness of our system against real-world conditions

(Builds on goal one)

Though we can validate the removal efficiencies of Cycleau technology under simulated settings, deploying a pilot program with volunteers who will install our technology within their households or offices can return evidence of our system’s effectiveness and resiliency against all potential real-world variables, which include unregulated contaminants and varying use patterns. This can further substantiate our advocacy for our technology’s deployment, or otherwise indicate where further iterations are needed.

We plan to work with volunteers from our partnering stakeholder organizations across cities of Detroit, Cleveland, and New York to deploy our pilot program in our target context of post-industrial U.S. cities. We aim to ask at least one organization and/or individual in each of these three cities to test one of three greywater treatment models we aim to produce in our first year of operating. During this pilot program, we will abide by testing protocol wherein volunteers will be asked to collect samples of their water after it has been treated through Cycleau at varying but predetermined times of each day for contaminant testing by our team and/or lab partners. For safety reasons, we will ask that volunteers do not consume water from the sink their Cycleau prototype is attached to during their period of participation in this pilot. Through this pilot program, we will request assistance from the MIT Solv[ED] team or other partners for guidance on limiting our liability from unintended prototype effects, how to protect our volunteers, and how to otherwise ensure legal compliance through this experimental phase.

Timeline

June - July 2023 

• • Fabricate three working prototypes of the Cycleau greywater treatment system for pilot program deployment
  • Coordinate deployment schedule with community-based partners in Flint, Cleveland, and New York
  • Coordinate legal liability protections for pilot program

August - November 2023

• • Launch pilot program through deployment of one working prototype of Cycleau with partners in Brooklyn and/or The Bronx, New York City. Potential partners include the Gowanus Dredgers, the Gowanus Canal Conservancy, and South Bronx Unite.
  • Coordinate acquisition of greywater samples spanning time of day and use patterns with participating volunteers

December 2023 - February 2024

• • Expand pilot program through deployment of one working prototype of Cycleau with partners in Cleveland, Ohio. Potential partners include Utilities for All and Organize!Ohio
  • Coordinate acquisition of greywater samples spanning time of day and use patterns with participating volunteers

March - June 2024

• • Expand pilot program through deployment of one working prototype of Cycleau with partners in Detroit, Michigan. Potential partners include Water You Fighting For, the Flint Democracy Defense League, and We the People of Detroit
  • Coordinate acquisition of greywater samples spanning time of day and use patterns with participating volunteers

Goal three: Leverage the results from our simulated tests and pilot program to advocate for development code reform to permit potable reuse projects in residential and/or commercial buildings

(Builds on goals one and two)

One of our most significant barriers to scaling the deployment of our technology is limited legal compliance for potable reuse technologies in current U.S. building codes. Because our technology is completely innovative in that it offers the world’s first compact, retrofitted system for treating greywater to potable standards, our system and its alternations to household plumbing are not addressed by local, state, or federal building codes. To be able to legally deploy our technology as a commercial product, we must first advocate for building code reform to permit potable reuse projects such as ours in residential and/or commercial buildings. Consequently, we aim to use the results from our first two impact goals — which quantifiably validate our technology’s removal efficiencies and real-world potential — to substantiate our argument for why potable reuse technologies such as ours should be legally permitted in buildings. Furthermore, we intend to use additional research which models the social and environmental benefits our technology brings to human health and reduced waterway pollution to demonstrate the systemic impact potable reuse opportunities can bring to sustainable urban planning needs. Engaging in such policy reform ultimately has the potential not only to catalyze our technology’s deployment, but to transform the current water reuse landscape in the U.S. and around the world as other innovators, companies, and utilities will follow suit in developing reuse systems that meet the gap that will be created by fresh legal compliance for a largely undeveloped technological sector.

Timeline

May 2023 - May 2024

• • Coordinate economic study of reduced wastewater discharges and public clean-up cost scenarios in partnership with Earth Economics
    • Develop advocacy and research materials for policy recommendations
  • Submit Cycleau technology certification for USEPA, LEED, and other third-party approvals
  • Initiate connections with representations from building departments in New York City, Cleveland, and/or Detroit to review results of product validation and pilot program
  • Draft definitive clause revisions to existing local building codes to recommend permissions for potable reuse technologies

Cycleau is a compact under-the-sink greywater treatment system designed to capture and treat greywater used for household cooking, cleaning, or bathing for potable reuse applications within that same household. To provide clean water, it serves as a point-of-use treatment system where water can be filtered and purified immediately before it’s consumed. To reduce sewage pollution, it filters and disinfects water before it leaves the building to prevent contaminants from entering the local aquatic ecosystem. Cycleau operates as both a stand-alone piece of equipment as well as one that integrates into a household’s preexisting water infrastructure, with connections available for supply lines and drain pipes that may already be in use. Contaminated greywater can be treated in this compact, low-energy system as it passes through five comprehensive stages of water treatment which include coagulation, bed media filtration, membrane filtration, disinfection, and advanced oxidation. These treatment processes are as follows:

1. Coagulation 

Coagulation is often one of the first steps in water treatment. A chemical coagulant, like aluminum sulphate or ferric sulphide, is added to wastewater to attract suspended particles. When small particles are bound to a coagulant, they form a larger group of particles which is easier to filter out. In Cycleau, a coagulant is injected into the water stream through a Venturi injector, after which it settles in a coagulation basin. Water passing through and settling in the basin has time to interact with the coagulant, and particles can group together before filtration. 

2. Bed Media Filtration 

Larger particles are then filtered out through a sediment filter containing find sand, activated carbon, and drainage gravel, all together known as “bed media.” This reduces the load of particles that will eventually pass through membrane filters, and also improves the appearance and taste of water. 

3. Membrane Filtration

Membrane filters with pore sizes ranging from 10 nanometers (1 x 10-9 meters) to 10 micrometers (1 x 10-5 meters) can filter out the smallest of particles which still contaminate water. In Cycleau, a microfilter, ultrafilter, and nanofilter are used consecutively to comprehensively filter water three times. We have selected to use these three membrane filters in place of a single reverse osmosis filter as another point of innovation when compared to similar products. Using these three membranes reduces the sediment load which can threaten the durability of any single membrane, while also reducing the energy usage and amount of water which can be rejected as discharge by a reverse osmosis filter.

4. Ultraviolet Irradiation

Even with all that filtration, some bacteria and pathogens can still be lurking in the water. Disinfection through UV irradiation can deactivate bacteria to prevent consumers from illness. In Cycleau, water passes through a UV irradiation bulb following membrane filtration. We selected UV irradiation over chlorination at this stage to reduce the risk of carcinogenic by-products from being formed, which can sometimes happen with chlorination. 

5. Advanced Oxidation

Oxidating the water by adding ozone can provide the final push to ensure water is fully disinfected before consumers use it. In Cycleau, ozone is added by an injector attached to a ceramic pipe which water flows through.

Our technology builds on existing water treatment systems, and primarily those found in municipal-scale water treatment plants, while innovating on their modularity to develop a compact, low-cost alternative that can be adapted by homeowners for everyday use. We use a combination of low- and high-tech units, such as the biosand sediment filter and the ultraviolet bulb, to make use of water treatment innovations found across the world and throughout history in order to improve the resiliency of our system as it stands to operate even against power disruptions and reduced energy inputs.

Because our solution is still being developed and tested, we have not yet deployed our technology for real-time use by consumers. Over the next year, our emphasis will continue to be on testing and validating our system’s removal efficiencies against a wide range of contaminants and other real-world variables. This research will best position us to advocate for policy reform in ways that could have a transformational impact on U.S. water systems for decades to come. A reform in local, state, and/or federal building codes to permit potable reuse projects such as ours could impact anywhere between 200,000 to 360 million individuals over the course of the coming decade, depending on how quickly our production capacity can scale to meet supply demands created by fresh legal compliance.

With this in mind, in the next year we intend to centralize our advocacy and research efforts in the New York metropolitan region to advocate for local building code reform in the five boroughs of New York City. Our technology will directly impact up to twenty individuals through our pilot program, though by leveraging the results of this preliminary research the political reform to follow can reach up to 8.7 million residents of New York City. 

Through this process, we also intend to continue our grassroots level education and advocacy efforts around water reuse concepts, drinking water quality, and waterway pollution to further engage our stakeholders in support of our technology’s development. In the past year, we reached approximately 50 individuals across the northeast region of the U.S. through our partnerships and dissemination of our early findings to raise awareness around the potential for water recycling to improve rates of human and environmental health in local water systems. In the coming year, we aim to reach up to 250 individuals by developing a series of digital learning modules that condense our findings into an accessible format that can be used for educational programming by our team and our partners during community events. These learning modules may provide an engaging interface for community residents to understand how our technology works and what potential it has to transform local water systems as a whole. We also intend to publish our research in regional and national academic journals to further disseminate our findings to the expert community, while sharing our work at the respective conferences to engage other technical experts in our project. The combination of our educational programming, both at the grassroots level and in the academic community, will allow us to reach up to 600 individuals in the coming year with our findings.

Our main barrier to implementation is the need for policy reform around local, state, and federal building codes to permit potable reuse technologies in residential and/or commercial buildings. Because our technology is completely innovative as it pioneers the world’s first compact potable reuse system for consumers, it is not yet recognized by public building codes and as such cannot be legally deployed. We are seeking advising and introductions to representatives of city and state building offices who may apply permissions for Cycleau and similar technologies to be deployed in buildings following extensive technology validation.

To support how we overcome this main legal barrier, we are currently examining related social and technical barriers concerning how this technology is validated and deployed. On the technical front, we recognize that Cycleau must show effective removal efficiencies against the 92 drinking water contaminants regulated by the USEPA to be validated enough to sway policy reform around potable reuse projects. As we are in the process of developing our first functioning prototype, this technical validation through water quality testing will be our top priority following prototype development. 

Socially, we also recognize that our stakeholder communities must receive full transparency on this technology to be engaged and in support of how it may improve their access to clean water. Though we have already made extensive headway in building the right relationships and trust with our stakeholders through our many community partnerships, we are also planning for how we may deploy educational programming tangential to our technology development to enhance how residents perceive this new device as it may support them.

We collaborate with and volunteer for a number of community-based organizations in different U.S. cities to support their advocacy work while advancing our research for Cycleau. These organizations include:

• We the People of Detroit
  • We are currently volunteering with We the People of Detroit to expand targeted research in the Detroit metropolitan region on the impacts of lead pipes for community health.
• Utilities for All
  • We have volunteered with this community organization in Cleveland, Ohio to support their advocacy work regarding local equitable access to affordable water and energy utilities.
• South Bronx Unite
  • We previously coordinated an economic study in partnership with South Bronx Unite and Columbia University to quantify the economic benefits of flood-resilient infrastructure in low-income waterfront neighborhoods such as Mott Haven, The Bronx.
• Gowanus Dredgers
  • We have volunteered with Gowanus Dredgers to support their community event planning and advocacy around the water management challenges surrounding the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn.
• Gowanus Canal Conservancy
  • We have volunteered with the Gowanus Canal Conservancy to support their on-the-ground activities for watershed restoration around the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn.

Cycleau is a product-driven intervention supplemented by capacity-building services as we aim to develop the world’s first compact potable water reuse technology. Our key program activities involve the manufacturing and distribution of Cycleau greywater treatment systems, which are designed to retrofit below household sinks to treat municipal water supplies while capturing and recycling household greywater for reuse. To achieve this, our first phase of development is specifically focused on prototyping, testing, and validating our technology through water sample testing before and after it passes through Cycleau. In addition to these core activities, some of our related programming involves expanding advocacy and education for water reuse opportunities. We are achieving this by developing a series of open-source learning modules which cover the challenges of urban water infrastructure management and the opportunities for water reuse interventions; partnering with community-based organizations in U.S. cities to support their advocacy efforts; and working alongside government partners to advocate for building code reform to permit potable reuse projects in multiple U.S. states. The combination of our direct and indirect program activities allows us to advance our technological innovation while promoting the social, economic, and political contexts which will allow our technology to scale and reach its full potential.

Our Beneficiaries and Customers

Multiple populations will be impacted by our intervention as either beneficiaries or customers. Low-income residents of post-industrial cities impacted by water contamination and/or sewage pollution in local waterways are among our core human beneficiaries, as Cycleau is designed to provide point-of-use water treatment while directly reducing the wastewater footprint of households to lower rates of sewage pollution. Improving the quality of local watersheds by reducing levels of sewage overflows can also support local aquatic ecosystems, and we consider the wildlife of such waterways to also be among our beneficiaries. Animal species found in the northeast United States, including diamondback terrapins; humpback whales; krill, plankton, and bunker fish; seahorses; oysters; fiddler crabs; river otters; turtles; marsh wrens and herons; and crayfish can all enjoy a cleaner aquatic ecosystem to thrive in as an effect of the regenerative impact Cycleau will have on urban water systems. To our users, Cycleau’s core value proposition relies on how it may protect users from the dangerous contaminants often found in public water supplies, while it may also promote savings on sewage utilities as a function of its on-site greywater recycling.

Cycleau’s deployment will alternatively be facilitated by our core customers, which include local and state governments; architects and developers; homeowners and renters; community-based organizations; and non-government organizations, all of whom have a stake in ensuring the provision of clean water for all. To our customers, Cycleau’s value proposition rests in how it may be a low-cost method for diversifying water and wastewater infrastructure to improve homeowners’ resiliency to sudden changes in water quality. It can also improve the quality of local waterways, which will open new opportunities for waterfront recreation that can create jobs and improve the quality of life in urban areas. Of the different populations that will invest in Cycleau, we estimate our revenue streams to break down by the following customer segments:

• Architects and developers: 30%
• Homeowners: 30%
• Local and state governments: 20%
• Community-based organizations: 10%
• Non-governmental organizations: 10%

Our projections are based on our understanding of these different populations’ expenditure rates; flexibility of capital; and direct incentives to invest in Cycleau. Architects, developers, and homeowners will be among our top customers due to their direct advantage in using affordable and accessible technology for water efficiency, utility savings, and household insurance. To further incentivize architects and developers to install Cycleau at a wholesale rate during building construction and/or retrofits, we also intend to have our technology certified by third-party platforms such as LEED to promote Cycleau as an accredited product that will improve the overall sustainability of an architectural project. Local and state governments, as well as CBOs/NGOs, also make up smaller revenue streams for our enterprise as they may invest in wholesale units of Cycleau to distribute for free or at a subsidized rate to our users to ensure that this technology reaches those who may need it most as a function of their own institutional responsibilities to promote equitable access to basic resources.

Our Impact Measures

To consistently deliver on our value propositions to both our beneficiaries and customers, we intend to use the following metrics to demonstrate our impact on urban social and environmental health. To first quantify the direct impact Cycleau has on water quality, we will report the removal efficiencies of the Cycleau water treatment system against all drinking water contaminants regulated by the USEPA for public access on our website and in print-outs with all of our commercial units. This will allow users to understand how effective Cycleau is against their contaminants of concern. To demonstrate the improved water quality Cycleau may have as a function of reduced wastewater discharges from households, we also intend to partner with local citizen science programs to test the water quality of urban waterways after periods of sewage overflow over the course of our technology’s expanded deployment to measure reductions in waterway pollution potentially as a function of Cycleau being used in households. By testing against all potential real-world variables, we will be able to approximate the direct impact Cycleau has on local waterbodies as another measure of our impact. In addition to our direct impact, we will also report on how we have been able to influence the broader context of water infrastructure management by measuring the extent of building code reform which permits potable reuse projects, as well as the expanded allotment of recreational water permits and/or public programming as a function of improved waterway health. Measuring how much our initiative has affected local policy will signify the transformational impact our work has had, as it will have tangibly altered the opportunities available to other companies and utility providers as we collectively work towards improving equitable access to clean water in the U.S.

Our Resources

A number of material and team resources will be needed to develop and deploy Cycleau over the course of the next five years. Our material needs include wholesale acquisition of the components used within the Cycleau treatment system, which include chemical coagulant(s); Venturi injectors; piping; pressure pumps; pump filters; sensor(s); actuator(s); bed media; UV bulbs; ozone generator; ceramic pipes;  and membrane filters including microfilters, ultrafilters, and nanofilters. We will also need access to equipment for product development, such as an injection press, laser cutter, and metal cutter, as well as for water quality testing, such as a turbidimeter and titration equipment. We may choose to acquire this equipment for use in-house, or to partner with an equipped fabrication facility and/or water quality testing lab based on our current capacity.

Through this process, we will need a team of personnel with a wide range of skill sets to support product development. Our personnel needs include a mechanical engineer; an electrical engineer; a chemical engineer; a manufacturing specialist; a product designer; a lab technician; and/or EPA-certified laboratory partners. In addition to these team-building needs, we also plan to work with a wide range of external partners to support the research, development, and deployment of our technology. Our external partners will include community-based organizations such as local advocacy groups and churches to support our relationship-building efforts with our beneficiaries; non-governmental organizations such as water research centers, environmental attorneys, and citizen science programs to support our advocacy efforts regarding policy reform and local capacity-building; private companies such as fabrication labs, component suppliers, and third-party certifiers who can validate our product; and government agencies, including EPA-certified water quality testing labs and building code departments who can approve our product for distribution.

Over the course of product development, prototyping, and piloting, our largest expenditure areas will involve costs for prototyping, testing water samples, certifying our equipment, and employing team personnel. However, as we enter our product distribution phase, these expenditure areas will shift to prioritize production and transportation costs, in addition to expanding personnel costs. As we generate profits on the units we sell, we intend to first re-invest our surplus funds to expand the production and distribution of Cycleau technology. In addition to scaling our business operations, we also intend to reallocate our surplus funds to invest in workforce development programs that can provide training for jobs in manufacturing and/or water quality testing to promote access in our target communities to high-paying, desirable jobs with Cycleau. We will also invest in expanded educational programming which will build on our current advocacy efforts as a way to expand awareness for and engagement with water reuse opportunities across the U.S.

Cycleau is structured as a direct employment social enterprise which embeds its mission within its core product distribution. Our vision is of a world in which every plant and animal has equitable access to clean water resources, while our mission is to advance water reuse technology to reduce the health impacts of water pollution on humans and wildlife. By creating a technology which enables point-of-use water treatment with reduced wastewater discharges, we are able to sell a product and create profits while achieving our mission for social and environmental impact.

In our first two years of operation, we will primarily generate capital through sustained donations and grants for technology development. It will be critical for us to leverage grant funding in order to prototype and validate our technology prior to distribution without incentivizing equity-driven business growth through venture capitalism. The following list of expenses demonstrates our expected budget during the first two to five years of product development, including sources of potential funding:

Total Expenses: $305,525

1. Total material expenses: $121,500
   1. Casement/structural material: $8,000
   2. Electromechanical equipment: $12,000
   3. Outsourced water quality testing: $100,000
   4. Digital modeling software: $1,500
2. Total product validation expenses: $49,025
   1. Turbidimeter: $1,600
   2. Total dissolved solids meter: $150
   3. pH meter: $100
   4. Filter photometer: $11,300
   5. Fluorometer: $18,375
   6. Atomic Absorption Spectrometer: $17,500
3. Total staffing expenses: $135,000
   1. Mechanical engineer: $35,000
   2. Chemical engineer/water quality specialist: $35,000
   3. Product designer: $30,000
   4. Lab technician: $35,000

Total potential funding: $1,294,500

1. The New School Student Research Award: $6,000 (confirmed receipt January 2023)
2. The New School Civil Engagement and Social Justice Mini-Grant: $1500 (confirmed receipt November 2022)
3. Eugene Lang Innovation Award: $7000 (confirmed receipt December 2022)
4. Swarovski Foundation Creatives for Our Future Award: $20,000 (confirmed receipt September 2022)
5. MIT Solv[ED] Award: $5,000
6. CIV:LAB Award: $50,000
7. Hudson River Foundation Innovation and Synthesis Grant: $25,000
8. Make It Circular Challenge: $10,000
9. 11th Hour Racing Grant: $25,000
10. National Geographic Level I Grant: $20,000
11. NIH Small Business Innovation Research Grant: $275,000
12. NIH Small Business Technology Transfer Grant: $275,000
13. James Dyson Award: $35,000
14. Seoul Design Award: $40,000
15. SBIR Environmental Technologies Grant: $200,000
16. Imagine H2O Urban Water Challenge: $100,000
17. USAID Development Innovation Ventures: $200,000

With this projected funding and list of potential funding opportunities in mind, two things must be noted:

1. First, that our projected budget includes water quality testing equipment and personnel expenses that are not necessarily critical to achieving a working model and minimum viable product. While the material expenses (A) are necessary to complete the prototyping stage, product validation (B) and personnel expenses (C) may be outsourced and/or reduced in order to meet our project goals under any funding constraints we may encounter. These expenses are included, however, to project for an ideal fundraising scenario in which we would have the flexibility to acquire all resources which could benefit our product development process.
2. Second, that we have listed nearly $1.3 million in funding opportunities with the expectation that we will only receive 10 - 25% of all funding sources we apply for. Because our enterprise is still early-stage and our founder is young with limited professional experience, it must be expected that not all funders will approve our applications or that other enterprises with better resources and more experience will be more competitive applicants than ourselves. Though we feel confident that our proposal is well-conceived and fruitful, we also consider it pragmatic to project our fundraising efforts to exceed our baseline budget.

Following the first two to five years of product development, our operations model for financial sustainability will shift to reflect a greater dependency on increasing amounts of sales to create a profit which can be reinvested into our enterprise. At this stage and continuing throughout the rest of the enterprise’s existence, we will achieve financial sustainability by selling our product at a profit to customer segments including architects and developers; homeowners; local government agencies; and NGOs/CBOs. Because we intend to operate as a social business, we will reinvest our profits in scaling the production and distribution of Cycleau technology, while also funding non-program activities targeted at education and advocacy for water reuse opportunities.