Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) require an urgent transition from a linear to a circular economy operation/design concept with a consequent resource recovery and more sustainable waste management. Natural resources have to be preserved, and wastes have to become an opportunity for recovering resources and materials (water reuse, energy, sludge reuse). However, the transition toward a circular economy is a complex and long process due to the existence of technical, economic, social and regulatory barriers. These existing barriers are critical challenges for a modern and sustainable WWTP concept. The recovery of resources must be considered a strategic target from the earliest process-design phase. In this context, the European Union’s Horizon 2020 project “Achieving wider uptake of water-smart solutions—WIDER UPTAKE” aims to overcome the existing barriers (technological, regulatory, organizational, social and economic) toward the transition from a linear to a circular economy model for WWTPs. This study is aimed at increasing the awareness of the existing barriers to a circular economy and summarizes the key contributions of the WIDER UPTAKE project in terms of water reuse, sludge reuse and nutrient recovery.

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The wastewater sector paradigm is shifting from wastewater treatment to resource recovery. In addition, concerns regarding sustainability during the operation have increased. In this sense, there is a need to break barriers (i.e., social, economic, technological, legal, etc.) for moving forward towards water resource recovery facilities and demonstration case studies can be very effective and insightful. This paper presents a new water resource recovery case study which is part of the Horizon 2020 EU Project “Achieving wider uptake of water-smart solutions—Wider Uptake”. The final aim is to demonstrate the importance of a resource recovery system based on the circular economy concept. The recovery facilities at Palermo University (Italy) are first presented. Afterwards, the resource recovery pilot plants are described. Preliminary results have underlined the great potential of the wastewater treatment plant in terms of resources recovery and the central role of the University in fostering the transition towards circular economy. The fermentation batch test highlighted a volatile fatty acids (VFAs) accumulation suitable for polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) production. The results of static adsorption and desorption tests showed that the highest amount of adsorbed NH4+ was recorded for untreated and HCl-Na treated clinoptilolite.

The current exploitation of freshwater, as well as the significant increase in sewage sludge production from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), represent nowadays a critical issue for the implementation of sustainable development consistent with the circular economy concept. There is an urgent need to rethink the concept of WWTPs from the conventional approach consisting in pollutant removal plants to water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs). The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the demonstration case studies at the Marineo and Corleone WRRFs in Sicily (IT), with the final aim showing the effectiveness of the resources recovery systems, as well as the importance of plant optimization to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from WRRFs. This study is part of the H2020 European Project “Achieving wider uptake of water-smart solutions—Wider-Uptake”, which final aim is to demonstrate the water-smart solution feasibility in the wastewater sector. The main project goal is to overcome the existing barriers that hamper the transition to circularity through the implementation of a governance analysis tool. The preliminary actions in the two demonstration cases are first presented, while, subsequently, the water-smart solutions to be implemented are thoroughly described, highlighting their roles in the transition process. The achieved preliminary results underlined the significant potential of WRRF application, a great chance to demonstrate the feasibility of innovative solutions in the wastewater sector to overcome the existing social, administrative and technical barriers.

Background Self-imposed food restrictions are common in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) because oftheir erroneous belief of the role of food in disease worsening and, recently, eating disorders have alsobeen described. Orthorexia nervosa is characterized by the obsession of eating healthy and natural foods.Only a few studies have assessed orthorexia in patients with digestive disease and there are no studies inIBD. The aim of this study is to assess the risk of orthorexia in patients with IBD. Methods 158 consecutive subjects were prospectively recruited from February to October 2022 in a tertiary referralcenter: 113 patients with IBD and 45 healthy controls. The cohort of IBD patients consisted of 74 patientson biologic drugs, 28 patients on conventional therapy, and 12 patients admitted to the ward for diseaseflares. Demographic and clinical data were collected, and the ORTO-15 questionnaire, validated by Doniniet al., was used to assess the risk of orthorexia. Results Patients with IBD had a prevalence of orthorexia of 77%, significantly higher than the 47% observed in thecontrol group (p <0.001). No statistically significant differences between patients with and without risk oforthorexia in relation to age (p=0.66), gender (p=0.37), marital status (p=0.78), educational status (p=0.88),and occupation (p=0.64) were found, although a nonsignificant trend could be observed for a lower BMI inpatients with risk of orthorexia compared with those without orthorexia (mean BMI 26.7 VS 25 kg/m2,p=0.12). The prevalence of orthorexia did not differ in relation to the diagnosis of UC or CD (p=0.98), nor tothe duration (p=0.75), the type of biological or conventional therapy (p=0.42), disease activity as measuredby Mayo score/HBI (p=0.47), and the presence of ostomy (p=0.33). The only statistically significantdifference observed concerned the history of previous surgery for IBD in patients with orthorexia (19.5percent), versus 3.8 percent in patients without orthorexia (p=0.05). Conclusion Our study showed that most patients with IBD has a risk of orthorexia and that this is associated with alower BMI and a history of previous surgery for IBD. Further research is warranted to evaluate the clinicalimpact of orthorexia in patients with IBD and its relationship with the avoidant restrictive food intakedisorder (ARFID) or other eating disorder. Evidence based counselling by a qualified dietician is stronglywarranted in IBD clinics.