The NGERS and wastewater management project is intended to identify key contributors to waste stream loads and resources, including thermal, energetic, and chemical. This was partly driven by carbon pricing, and partly driven by a lack of knowledge in this area required to guide informed decisions into building wastewater infrastructure. Project activities included a literature review, multiple site visits to 6 sites, and detailed chemical, biochemical and statistical analysis. The literature review included the formal literature (some 600 relevant articles), as well as MLA/AMPC projects (approximately 19 out of 103 environment projects) were reviewed.

From the literature it appears that wastewater strength has increased in the last 10 years from a base level of 2000-5000 mgCOD/L to >5000 mgCOD/L, with a water consumption decrease in the range of 20%. Results from this project show that overall water usage and nutrient loads were within ranges expected from literature, however wastewater strength has further increased to ~10,000 mgCOD/L and subsequently total organic loads were estimated at 2-4 times greater than the loads expected from literature.