A growing number of municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in the United States are no longer routinely wasting biological solids from their treatment processes. These plants use a unique process that combines conventional activated sludge treatment technology with a smaller, separate sidestream system to recycle and restructure the bacterial population until all excess biological material is completely broken down and degraded. An interchange between the aerobic treatment process and the non-aerobic sidestream basin conditions the bacteria for solids reduction.

The Cannibal™ solids reduction process from USFilter Envirex Products eliminates routine biological wasting. A portion of the return sludge is pumped to a sidestream bioreactor where the mixed liquor is converted from an aerobic-dominant population to a facultative-dominant population. By carefully controlling the environment, aerobic bacteria are selectively destroyed in this sidestream reactor while enabling the low-yield, facultative bacteria to break down and use the remains of the aerobes and their byproducts.