Since the beginning of my PhD journey, little was I concerned about this question.
In the past academic years, we were always being informed about new techniques, materials and improvements about advanced oxidation processes and how degradation, mineralization, disinfection and “detoxification” were important for the process. The emphasis was put more into “producing” safer wastewater and never “what about” this water.
Well, it only took one summer school to open a new chapter in my head.
In fact, it took a handful of experts from various corners of the science field to just discuss something that usually escapes from a person being in the lab all day or from the casual employee doing a 9 to 5 in a marginal wastewater treatment plant.
Why do we do that?
We make so much effort to make sure the conditions are right, optimized, just in the limits of legislation with as much energy and resource saving as possible, and in the end, we just discharge the product into the environment.
Given the imminent water scarcity, why don’t we use this effort to put that water into use?
It all starts with climate change and the pressure on water; with the weather patterns getting more unpredictable and water scarcity increasing. We live on this small blue dot in the cosmos, but the actual part of this “blue” being freshwater is only but a fraction.
Desalination is an option that is often way too expensive and thus not always feasible. Could the water naturally desalinated through its natural circle and used be returned for further use rather than simply returning to the sea? Are there related legislation and case studies? What is the current state of the art? To what extent is its use permitted? Can we explore more uses? What is the future of the water sector?
A great many questions were addressed in this international school, but one that really hit me to the core is, what about the people? People will need water and will probably need to pay more for it, could we ensure access to water for all people? Does water reuse comprise an important step towards that?
That train of thought was a great takeaway message for me from my experience in the International School for Water Reuse in Turin, from 14th to 17th September 2026.
For the reader, the school was organized locally in the UNITO’s Chemistry Department and supported by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission.
The approach there was multidisciplinary and holistic, a feature especially helpful to guide any participant through the topic of water reuse, much more like a journey.
Speaking of journeys in the academic sector, this international school also offered the participants the opportunity to share their work in poster form.
Hence, I also presented some of our work results in the University of Salerno in poster sessions, where we investigated heterogeneous Fenton for water treatment.
Who knows? We might be close to a breakthrough!
As for the international school, 10/10 would definitely recommend!
