World Water Day is being celebrated on Sunday 22 March, which is a United Nations Observance highlighting the importance of fresh water.
Innovate Enviro is a company focused on managing our natural resources better. A lot of their work is in infrastructure, construction, and mining, with a strong focus on water management solutions.
Queensland-based Innovate Enviro is taking their environmental solutions around the country. We recently caught up with managing director Butch Uechtritz to understand more about the business, its focus on developing practical and innovative water treatment solutions, and the strong partnership with Vital Chemical that continues to develop new and exciting innovations in this space.
Q. Can you tell us about Innovate-Enviro, your philosophy, and how you started the business?
Butch – “I come from an Environmental Science background, mostly in water resource management. Through conversations with a friend, I learned about the construction industry and their difficulty in managing stormwater runoff well. So, I came up with a new methodology and some technology to manage the runoff more efficiently and effectively from an environmental point of view.
Innovate Enviro’s Butch Uechtritz
This led to founding a business called Turbid Water Solutions, which I am still associated with. And then, about five to six years ago, I started the Innovate Enviro business, which builds on that.
Innovate Enviro still has a focus on sustainable environmental outcomes, while also looking at broader opportunities – not just stormwater management, sediment removal and the like. One of the key things that we enjoy doing from a business point of view is collaborating with other like-minded businesses, to explore and develop effective, innovative, new ways to do things that have a positive environmental outcome. We’ve been working with Vital Chemical for some time. They have the same ethos as us, being very socially and environmentally aware.
Collaboration is a big focus for Innovate Enviro. You usually need to bring in expertise and knowledge from a broad range of people to get the best environmental outcome. We genuinely believe that a diverse team of multiple expert consultants will give a better result to the client.
Q. What types of work do you do specifically?
Butch – “We provide innovative solutions for environmental outcomes. We want to help develop and then provide to market, solutions that make a difference. A heavy focus is on water management.
We’ve developed new designs in portable water treatment units that perform better than current designs; we’ve undertaken research and development into biofertilizers/bio stimulants; undertaken field trials of salinity reduction in mine pits through bioremediation in floating wetlands; and assisted in the development of an advanced water treatment system that has been shown to destroy PFAS [Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – synthetic chemicals] in water amongst other things, which is very promising.
Q. Can you please elaborate on your water treatment practices?
Butch –
“Mine Pitwater Utilisation Project (Queensland) – An initial concept we wanted to explore was having specific plant species (ones that could uptake salt and store it in their tissue cells) manage salinity in water. This plant tissue could then be harvested and used for fodder and energy production – so it was a natural way to manage potential salinity accumulation in water bodies, using these constructed floating wetland-like structures that I knew about already doing great work at managing other contaminants in water.
I then had an opportunity to join other collaborators to really look at the whole problem of rehab on mining sites. A lot of mining sites struggle to do well in that regard because the sites can take so long to stabilise with grass and the like. What we were wanting to demonstrate, with some other industry partners, is that we can create some really good growth medium (top soil equivalents) out of their previously worthless, rubbishy spoil material, select specific pasture species that could tolerate saltier water that we could irrigate with the partially treated salt-reduced water out of their dams.
What we were able to show is that we could rapidly establish vegetation cover using these techniques. Because we’re stabilising the catchments and continually treating that water at the same time, we could achieve significant water quality improvements. The team included soil scientists, a soil amelioration company, a project manager, civil engineers with years of experience in mine rehabilitation in Central Queensland and we also engaged with an international wetland specialist.
Other solutions we developed were utilising the excess water in the pits for aquaculture and horticulture use, further expanding the opportunities for the communities that historically were only mining focused.
We’re really trying to find the win-win-wins. A win for the environment, a win economically, and a win socially in what we do.
Q. What about this PFAS technology you are supporting?
Butch-
“This is very exciting technology that I’ve been assisting a new company in Australia develop.
It relies on creating chemically enhanced processes to break apart the PFAS chains to their basic building blocks, rendering the water chemistry inert and safe. The developer has been working on it for over a decade during his time in Europe and has demonstrated nearly complete PFAS destruction on a range of wastewater at a fraction of the cost and energy required for other potential systems. A real game changer!
Q. Tell us about your partnership with Vital Chemical
Butch says that using high-quality products is really important when we are trying to achieve great environmental outcomes, which is why he has such a strong relationship with Vital Chemical.
Butch – “We know the Vital products are of high quality, and environmentally sound.
We work closely together to ensure the current range of products and the future ones we are working on developing are just that. We need to know that what we send out into the field isn’t going to cause issues that we are working to solve in the first place, and provide great environmental outcomes.
We empower our clients to understand the concepts and what we’re trying to achieve together, so that they can be involved in the site management processes and then be engaged to achieve those outcomes themselves. We have a collaborative approach with our clients.
Vital offers us specialised water treatment products, including flocculants and coagulants like Vital Super Clear and Vital Eco Super Floc, the relatively new blended product Vital Super Clear Extra (which is now what the vast majority of clients are using) designed to remove suspended solids and other contaminants from water.
The Vital Super Clear Extra product is a great example of the partnership between Innovate Enviro and Vital, as we developed that product together – a far superior product that still has significant broad environmental outcomes and low risk. It’s a high-quality coagulant, blended with a bio-polymer flocculant. It is extremely sustainable given the different raw materials used, and it has excellent functionality when used in water treatment.
Another exciting product we are developing together is a product to slow evaporation on water bodies. This has a huge potential for water savings in drier areas of the globe. Watch this space!”
