Talk Time: A Genius Who Finds Gold in Garbage
“Yuck to Wow” is a way to sum up the work of Columbia University environmentalist KARTIK CHANDRAN. The only Indian American among the 24 MacArthur Fellows in 2015, he’s tackling the problems of cities and has been hailed for integrating ecology, biology, and engineering to purify water.
Your award-winning research involves treating
fecal sludge and other waste streams to derive
fuels and other resources from them. You have
said that you work at the nexus between water,
energy, nutrients, and chemicals. Can you explain
what that means?
Traditionally we were looking at different mechanisms
and pathways to get clean water. Then we
realized there are more issues here than just the challenges
in getting clean water and that all these socalled
waste streams from fecal sludge could not only
be sources of water but also sources of energy such
as biogas and also higher-value fuels, biodiesel, for
instance. What we’re saying is we’ll offset some of
the energy and chemical inputs needed to clean water
by producing some of them from the waste stream
itself. Nitrogen and phosphorus can be recovered
and reutilized, so that’s the nutrient part of the
equation. We’ve been treating the problem of clean
water in a somewhat simplistic form by looking at
these waste streams as something to clean up at any
cost. That’s possible in some parts of the world but
not possible for most of the world.
So basically the one-size-fits-all Western model
of clean water is too simplistic and expensive for all?
It’s not just about the expense; it’s other kinds of
resources, too. You go to India: there’s money, sure, but
not enough energy to throw around. Nobody is going
to expend energy to clean wastewater—there are so
many additional challenges that communities in India
face. It’s not just money; it’s also localized production of
chemicals and energy.
Why did you start with Ghana as ground zero for
your research?
That’s where a lot of activities are already going on.
There’s awareness, there’s technology, there’s education
to a certain extent—it’s a good place to work. Places
like India, China, Brazil could also have been very
good options.
Has this conversation come up in India? Have
you approached people there and talked about implementing
it on some sort of scale?
Yes, this conversation is increasingly happening
now. Scale doesn’t have to mean one massive system,
it could mean multiple systems as well. It’s not a thisor-
that approach—it’s probably a hybrid of both.
How has growing up in India shaped your approach
here? There’s a very different mindset in India,
for example, in finding solutions in stuff that people
just throw away.
It’s hard to say, but I would say that the exposure
certainly was there. We see how it is being handled,
then when we come to this country we see it being
handled in a different fashion. It’s the exposure to
different models that keeps things interesting.
How much of a dent do you think this will make
in the world pollution problem?
The potential is definitely there. Scaling is important;
this has to be implemented at scale. There are immediate
impacts on water quality and perhaps slightly
longer-term impacts on human health.
What are the lessons from your research in Ghana,
for example, that the West can also learn from?
Education absolutely needs to be a part of this
overall thinking. Technology could be one component,
policy could be one component, but unless the local
communities are educated and interested and proficient
at asking the right questions, nothing is going to
work. It’s also important for people to learn about such
challenges all over the world rather than being focused
on one narrow aspect. Everyone needs to get educated
here, not just one side.
When you explain your research, I’m curious
about the initial reactions you get. How much of the
“eew, gross” factor plays in there?
It’s not that bad any more; it’s getting better.
When I first joined Columbia it was worse, but it
definitely is getting better.
Have you decided what you’re going to do with
the MacArthur genius award? A new project or more
detail into this one?
Honestly, I have to figure this out. So far we are
doing what we know, but perhaps there are other bigger
challenges that we need to address. For example,
we need to figure out what to do with future cities. We
know now that at least 60 percent of the world’s population
will live in cities, but we have no idea what to
do—how to provide them with clean water and clean
air, adequate energy, whether the centralized model is
going to work. That’s something I am really interested
in and would like to at least begin to explore.
Where is your home base in India? Do you visit
often?
It’s in Chennai. I visit as often as everybody else—
as much as work can afford.
Poornima Apte is a Boston-area freelance writer and editor. Learn more at WordCumulus.WordPress.com.
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