In-home greywater recycling systems offer significant advantages to certain homes and businesses. However, due to the involved installation process, storage requirements, and extended payback period, distributed greywater treatment has been slow to take hold. Centralized public greywater treatment systems still involve several carbon-intensive transportation and treatment processes.
The founders of RainStick Shower have created a point-of-use (POU) water treatment technology to combat water scarcity. The first-of-its-kind, recirculating shower in North America, RainStick offers a self-contained, sustainable alternative to traditional showers that waste water by constantly sending it down the drain. Employing a closed-loop system captures, treats, and recirculates shower water, minimizing waste and maximizing efficiency.
How RainStick works
The innovative POU loop features three distinct cleaning stages to ensure the water remains suitable and safe for reuse:
A micron-level screen traps debris, such as hair and dirt, preventing them from circulating in the water.
Precisely controlled, fresh hot water is continuously introduced, maintaining the desired water temperature and pressure.
RainStick disinfects the recirculating water, using high-intensity UV LED technology. This eliminates harmful bacteria and viruses, delivering purified water.
RainStick can reduce water consumption by up to 80% compared to conventional showers, with no compromise on the quality of the shower experience. According to a study conducted by the US EPA, the average American uses 82 gallons of water per day. By adopting water-saving technologies like RainStick on a larger scale, we can collectively minimize the strain on freshwater resources and reduce the energy footprint of water use in our homes.
Spotted: By 2030, the world’s communal demand for fresh water is expected to outstrip supply by 40 per cent. How to avert this crisis is a question many innovators, researchers, and agencies are working to answer. And sustainable management of the water that is currently available is a crucial aspect of the global solution.
Understanding the health of the world’s bodies of water, along with current and potential future risks is vital, and San Francisco-based technology company Waterplan has created a platform that uses remote sensing and artificial intelligence (AI) to track, analyse, and mitigate the risk to global water supplies.
The platform helps organisations of any kind plan for the future by protecting water supplies now. The highly detailed reports include data from regulatory reviews, watershed authorities, industry analysis, scientific research, and more, with information presented in easily navigable formats. Clients view data by site and can see at a glance which areas need risk mitigation first.
The reports are structured in a way that makes them usable for investors, and client input helps shape what areas the AI tracks. Sustainability managers use the platform to track progress against targets and measure the efficacy of various interventions. Operations managers can use the platform to maintain peak productivity across all processes and locations, as well as predict adjustments needed based on changing conditions.
With the need for robust data continual, Waterplan recently closed an oversubscribed series A financing round that raised $11 million (around €10 million).
Cleaning polluted water is one way to improve the quantity of supply, and examples from Springwise’s archive include a membrane that generates electricity while cleaning wastewater and a modular sewage treatment plant that fits inside a shipping container.
Spotted: Globally, water scarcity is a growing problem. According to some estimates, demand for water could exceed supply by 40 per cent as soon as the year 2030. At the same time, a typical 300-room hotel will use nearly 200 gallons per room a day, with the bulk of that coming from the bathroom.
To encourage hotel guests to use less water, startup Shower Stream has developed a device that attaches easily to the shower head and connects to Wi-Fi for collecting water usage, temperature, and pressure data in real time. Guests turn on the shower as usual and, when the water has reached a desired temperature, the device will pause water flow and restart it at the same temperature once the motion sensors detect the guest has entered the shower.
Not only does the device lower water costs for the hotel, but it also provides monthly reporting of energy and water data that helps hotel operators identify potential maintenance issues before they become expensive. The data collected also helps hotels apply for local rebates and incentives that act as additional revenue streams.
According to Shower Stream, the device averages water and energy savings of around $30,000 (around €28,000) per hotel. The technology is also low-cost, at around $5 (around €4.67) per unit and $10 (around €9.34) per month for the advanced analytics. This device is attracting the attention of a number of hotel chains and investors, with Shower Stream already installed in properties belonging to Hyatt Hotels, Global Hotel Group, Extended Stay America, and more.
Hotels are not the only ones concerned with water savings. Springwise has recently spotted a number of innovations aimed at reducing water use. These include a water-recycling shower and sustainable laundry service.
Robert Hutchison Architecture and Javier Sanchez Arquitectos include an extensive system for capturing and reusing stormwater for a family nature retreat in a mountainous region of Mexico.
The Rain Harvest Home, or Casa Cosecha de Lluvia, is located in the rural town of Temascaltepec, which lies about 140 kilometres west of Mexico City.
Top: The home is located in the mountains west of Mexico City. The photo is by Jamie Navarro. Above: It is one of three independent structures. The photo is by Rafael Gamo.
The retreat was designed by Seattle’s Robert Hutchison Architecture and Mexico City-based Javier Sanchez Arquitectos (JSa), which have collaborated on projects together in the past. The retreat was designed for JSa’s founder and his family, who plan to make it their permanent residence in the future.
The property consists of three independent structures – a main house, a bathhouse and an art studio.
A main house is included in the complex. Photo is by Jamie Navarro
Landscaping elements include bio-agriculture gardens, an orchard and a network of pathways.
Permaculture principles were used to “establish a holistic, integrated relationship between people and place”, the team said.
Permaculture – a portmanteau of permanent agriculture and permanent culture – is an approach to design and land management that takes cues from natural ecosystems.
The bathhouse is a round building. Photo is by Rafael Gamo
One of the main goals for the project was to be mindful of resource consumption, particularly water. In turn, all of the structures are designed to capture and reuse rainwater.
The harvesting system meets 100 per cent of the home’s water needs, according to the architects.
A standalone art studio also features at the site. Photo is by Laia Rius Solá
“Here, as in the surrounding region of Central Mexico, water has become an increasingly precious resource as temperatures rise and populations increase,” the team said.
The region has a robust rainy season, but rainwater harvesting is uncommon. Instead, water tends to be pumped in from faraway watersheds.
The home features various communal areas. Photo is by César Béjar
“Rain Harvest Home takes a different tack, proposing an integrated approach to designing regeneratively with water,” the team said.
Encompassing 1,200 square feet (111 square metres), the main house was envisioned as a pavilion for year-round use and features a large amount of covered outdoor space, with views of the landscape on all sides of the building.
The residence includes an open-plan kitchen. Photo is by Rafael Gamo
The home’s communal area consists of an open living room, dining area and kitchen. The private zones hold two bedrooms, a den, a small bathroom, a powder room and a storage/laundry space.
Nearby, the team placed the bathhouse, which totals 172 square feet (16 square metres). The building is designed to offer “a poetic dialogue with the experiential qualities of water”.
Circular in plan, the bathhouse has four chambers that surround a central pool. Photo is by César Béjar
Circular in plan, the bathhouse has four chambers that surround a central cold-plunge pool that is open to the sky. The chambers contain a hot bath, sauna, steam shower and washroom.
The final structure is the 206-square-foot (19-square-metre) art studio. The rectangular building has a main level and an “outdoor skyroom”.
All three buildings have wood framing and black-stained pine cladding. Concrete-slab foundations are topped with pavers made of recinto volcanic stone. Roofs are covered with vegetation.
In the main residence, slender steel columns support deep roof overhangs. Rising up from the roof are protruding light monitors sheathed with unfinished steel plates, which will develop a patina over time.
Interior finishes include plywood made of Southern yellow pine. Photo is by Rafael Gamo
Interior finishes include recinto stone and plywood made of Southern yellow pine.
All three buildings have strategies in place to capture rainwater. Moreover, bioswales in the landscape help direct water to the property’s above- and below-ground reservoir system, where water is stored and purified.
Recinto stone was used for the flooring in some places. Photo is by Laia Rius Solá
“The on-site water treatment system is completely self-contained and primarily gravity-fed, containing five cisterns that provide potable and treated water,” the team said.
“A chemical-free, blackwater treatment system treats all wastewater on-site, returning it to the site’s water cycle as greywater for use in toilets, and to irrigate the on-site orchard,” the team added.
In addition to water conservation, the architects were also mindful of energy production. A 10-kW photovoltaic array generates electricity for all three buildings.
Overall, the home is meant to be a model for how to integrate water conservation into home design.
The home is meant to be a model for how to integrate water conservation into home design. Photo is by Laia Rius Solá
“It stands as a testament to the potential of rainwater harvesting for off-grid, self-contained water systems that eliminate reliance on municipal water sources,” the team said.
“At the same time, the element of water contributes to the overall spatial and experiential quality of the project, reconnecting people with their environment by engaging the senses.”
Other rural homes in Mexico include a house with a cruciform-shaped plan and hefty stone walls by HW Studio Arquitectos, and a brutalist-style, concrete house in a pine forest that was designed by architect Ludwig Godefroy.
Architects: Robert Hutchison Architecture and JSa Project team: Robert Hutchison, Javier Sanchez, Sean Morgan, Berenice Solis Structural engineer: Bykonen Carter Quinn Mechanical engineer: TAF Alejandro Filloy General contractor: Mic Mac Estructuras Landscape architect: Helene Carlo Wood construction and fabrication: MicMac Estructuras (Johan Guerrero) Steel construction and fabrication: Rhometal Roberto Chavez Water systems consultant: Miguel Nieto Solar systems consultant: Teoatonalli (Oscar Matus) Kitchen consultant: Piacere Charly Trujillo
Spotted: Access to safe water, sanitation, and hygiene are essential for health and well-being. Yet billions of people still lack access to these basic needs. On top of this, demand for water is rising due to population growth, urbanisation, and increasing water demands from sources such as agriculture, industry, and energy. But water purification and recovery can be expensive, requiring a great deal of energy, which can, in turn, lead to carbon emissions.
Now, Swedish company Retein has developed a new technology for energy-efficient and high-purity water separation. This has the potential to reduce the cost of recovering clean water while having a lower impact on the environment than traditional methods. The method was initially developed as a PhD project at Chalmers University of Technology.
The technology utilises a channel protein called aquaporin. Channel proteins provide gateways across the cell membrane, allowing water, nutrients, and other resources to move in and out. Retein has developed a new class of aquaporin capsules that are purified and stabilised by silica. These capsules are then incorporated into conventional polymer membranes to allow water to move rapidly across the separation membrane, with very little input of energy.
Not only could Retein’s aquaporins be used to filter water, but also to filter out other materials, potentially allowing the recovery of substances such as lithium from water. Because the aquaporins have been stabilised, they could easily be used as an additive to various kinds of filters on a wide range of scales.
Climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme weather events – including drought and flooding. This is making the need for sustainable water purification more urgent than ever. Luckily, Springwise is spotting a number of innovations in this space. These include a membrane coating that could make filtration cheaper and greener, and a modular wastewater treatment system driven by sunlight and water movement.
Spotted: As climate change makes weather and water supplies more unpredictable, it is vital that farming develops ways to use resources more efficiently. Data is playing an increasing role in this, by giving farmers better information on which to base decisions. One startup taking the lead on this is AguroTech. Founded in 2020, the company focuses on providing data and insights to farmers to help them use resources – such as water – more efficiently.
AguroTech has developed a platform that uses sensors, satellite and drone imagery, weather stations, crop and soil models, and more to provide unique and actionable recommendations to help farmers enhance their farm’s performance. The hardware and software provide farmers with real-time, artificial-intelligence-powered (AI) insights that can help them to better manage water, fertiliser, and pesticide use. The company will also soon be able to help farmers earn credits based on the amount of carbon stored in the soil.
The company is taking part in “LIFE – The Future of Farming”, an EU-sponsored initiative promoting collaboration between agricultural groups, farms, colleges, scientists, and municipal governments across Europe on mitigating damages caused by climate change.
AguroTech recently raised €1.5 million in a series A funding round led by VC Navus Ventures and ROM InWest. With this extra funding, AguroTech plans to scale further and expand internationally.
Improving farming yields while using fewer resources is the goal of a number of innovations Springwise has recently spotted. And it is a vital part of the response to global warming. These innovations include everything from a unique approach to regenerating desert lands to spreading rocks on farmland to capture carbon.
Rain Harvest Home – is located within Reserva el Peñón, a landscape-driven development which has achieved water self-sufficiency for a community of 80 families in 450 acres of a nature reserve, two hours from Mexico City. The Reserve framed our thinking around sustainability generally, and rainwater harvesting specifically. It pushed us to think at a larger level where the whole Reserve became the site, and the home was one piece of that. We also thought about how we could explore the larger issues of water conservation in Mexico, with this being an example of how to harvest rainwater on a small scale that could then apply to other projects. That became a driver in a powerful way. It was an idea that evolved over the course of the design process, and as the client became increasingly interested in cultivating a healthy, holistic lifestyle where they could live in harmony with the land.
Architizer chatted with Robert Hutchison from Robert Hutchison Architecture, and Javier Sanchez from JSa Arquitectura, to learn more about this project.
Architizer: What inspired the initial concept for your design?
Robert Hutchison & Javier Sanchez: The brief was simple: the clients wanted a small cabin to enjoy the mountainous site. Valle de Bravo has a dry season and a rainy season, and the sun plays a trick every day in both of those seasons. You can enjoy the sun, but you have to be careful with it. Here, you need to have spaces that are open and covered; enclosed and covered; and outside and uncovered. You need all three qualities, so we needed to make that happen within the three structures.
At the start, the project had a simple, classic program: 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, and a kitchen. When we were on site, we started developing the idea of splitting up the program into separate buildings. It started with wanting to separate the function of bathing, which led to the idea of the bathhouse. And then the separate studio emerged from that.
This project won in the 10th Annual A+Awards! What do you believe are the standout components that made your project win?
Rain Harvest Home offers a model for designing regeneratively with water. The home is 100% water autonomous and, in times of surplus, it is water positive and feeds excess water back into the community’s larger reservoir system. Not only does the design help restore the microclimate of the site, but it stands as a testament to the potential of rainwater harvesting for off-grid, self-contained water systems that eliminate reliance on municipal water sources. At the same time, the element of water contributes to the overall spatial and experiential quality of the project, reconnecting people with their environment by engaging the senses. More than any other element, conserving and improving the quality of water as a precious resource has the potential to dramatically improve the health and sustainability of built environments in Mexico, and beyond.
What was the greatest design challenge you faced during the project, and how did you navigate it?
Integrating the rainwater system was an initial design challenge, and continues to be an everyday challenge. Now, the rain harvesting system and on-site reservoir are a learning laboratory where the clients are continually learning about how the system performs. Understanding that the water and food systems on site are part of a living process that fluctuates depending on changing natural conditions, the client continues to experiment in ways to optimize the system through seasonal calibrations and refinements. Nothing is as objective as science would make it seem because things are always changing over time depending on how much it rains, and when. The house has to live with that, and it’s a constant learning experience for us as designers. It’s about integrating design into the cycle of water and of life.
How did the context of your project — environmental, social or cultural — influence your design?
The site is relatively flat, but sits within a mountainous environment. All around are cliffs and steep slopes, but our site rests in a small plateau vegetated with continuous, single-story-high shrubs and brush. Because of these site conditions, we wanted to make the buildings disappear within the vegetation. This is why we designed a series of three low pavilions that nestle into the landscape and are dispersed across the site. We wanted a strong connection between each building and the landscape. Often as architects, we think about how spaces are created between buildings, but this was about letting the landscape be that interstitial space. The landscape becomes the connection between the buildings, just as it delineates the spaces between them. When you move through the site, there’s an experience of the buildings constantly disappearing and reappearing. It’s a process of discovery.
How important was sustainability as a design criteria as you worked on this project?
Within La Reserva, each home is required to incorporate rain harvesting, with most of it coming from the individual home’s rainwater harvesting system and a small portion coming from the reserve’s reservoirs. We wanted to try and raise the bar and see if we could harvest 100% of our water from our individual site, rather than depend on external sources. This was important because there is a major water shortage in Mexico City, which is absurd because it rains a lot, but we don’t harvest that rainwater. Instead, we pump water in and out from the valley. As designers, we need to talk about those issues within our designs and experiment with new possibilities. Sometimes when you have a built example, it’s easier to understand new possibilities, particularly around rainwater harvesting.
Spotted: Though wipes are quick and convenient for taking off your make-up, they are an extremely wasteful product, with 11 billion thrown away every year. And each of these wipes take 100 years to biodegrade. To tackle this, Conserving Beauty has created InstaMelt, a make-up wipe made with patented fabric technology that dissolves in water after use, leaving no microplastics or waste. And, they’re vegan.
Conserving Beauty’s fabric has coveted Fine to Flush Certification by Water UK and will not block sewer pipes like other disposable wipes. The company recommends dissolving where many might already have a water footprint, like in the shower, kitchen sink, or toilet. The wipes are also packed into home-compostable packaging, including sachets and cartons. If the wipes are accidentally thrown away, they will biodegrade within 14 days in landfill with no adverse impact on our environment or wildlife.
InstaMelt delivers the benefits of an oil cleanser through its make-up wipe. It contains eight oils – including olive-based squalane, hemp seed, sunflower seed, and jojoba oil – to dissolve make-up while gently exfoliating the skin. The wipes are made ethically in Australia using traceable ingredients from the company’s global supply chain.
Conserving Beauty is committed to creating beauty products that help our skin and save water, carbon, and waste at the same time. The company is the first beauty member of The Water Footprint Network, which allows it to research and sustainably manage its water footprint.
More and more companies are preventing products from ending in landfills. For example, Springwise has spotted baby shoes that dissolve in water at the end of their usable life, and a sustainable medicine packaging system.
Spotted: Smart water use is a necessity for almost all households. And for the green-thumbed among us, irrigation is a tricky aspect of gardening. Too much water is as dangerous to plants as too little, so working with the weather conditions presents a daily challenge.
From a family desire to preserve plants passed down from previous generations, came the idea for a subsurface watering and irrigation system called the Root Quencher. Designed to minimise wasteful surface evaporation of water, while delivering water to the roots where it is needed most, the Root Quencher is available in two different sizes and can be used with existing sprinkler systems as well as a simple hose set-up.
The devices are made from sturdy recycled plastic and last for years. They come in different sizes and can be inserted into the ground at a variety of depths, depending on the size of the plants. Fertiliser can also be added to the device for steady application as the water flows through, and a series of holes in the device can be plugged or uncovered as needed to direct the water.
New products being released by the company in 2023 and 2024 include an in-ground device that connects to a drip line for hillside watering, and a lawn watering system designed to replace above-ground sprayheads.
Being more efficient with natural resources is a key component of many innovations as communities strive to reach their SDGs and national carbon neutral goals. Springwise has spotted a system that harvests solar power while providing energy for growing plants, and a zero-emission boiler for home heating.
Spotted: If you’ve ever bought a takeaway, chances are it arrived in packaging that uses PFAS, or poly- and per-fluoroalkyl substances. PFAS is a permanent group of 4700 industrial chemicals that have leaked into our environment, contaminating our blood, water, air, and food.
Thankfully, recently published work by chemical engineering and environmental scientists at the University of California, Riverside, aims to make these chemicals not-so-permanent. Their new method breaks up these ‘forever chemicals’ found in drinking water into smaller, harmless compounds.
The process infuses the contaminated water with hydrogen before exposing it to ultraviolet light; hydrogen makes water molecules more reactive, while the light causes chemical reactions that destroy the PFAS chemicals. This new method breaks the strong fluorine-to-carbon chemical bond that makes these pollutants so long-lasting and accumulative in the environment. Compared to other ultraviolet water treatment methods, the molecular destruction of PFAS increased from 10 to almost 100 per cent.
The new clean-up technology is also eco-friendly. “After the interaction, hydrogen will become water. The advantage of this technology is that it is very sustainable,” said Haizhou Liu, an associate professor in UCR’s Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering and the paper’s corresponding author.
Although Liu and his colleagues have only tested out the methods in small volumes of tap water, the team has been offered a $50,000 (around €46,600) proof-of-concept grant from UCR’s Office of Technology Partnerships to scale up and handle larger volumes of water.
Springwise has previously spotted other green technologies that clean up polluted water, including oil-eating microbes, and a process that treats industrial wastewater.
