Elliot Hobbs, project manager at Severn Trent, said: "Importing bugs from Brazil to treat our waste water is a great way to cut costs and improve efficiency. This approach has reduced our operational costs and carbon footprint of our end-to-end sewage treatment process.
"The bugs, known as annomox biomass, will convert ammonia into nitrogen as long as key operating conditions such as temperature and pH are maintained, making it a more efficient process overall."
More recently, the team has also imported these bugs a little closer to home, from the Netherlands, increasing their capability to process waste in this way.
As the process at Minworth matures and the biomass multiply, there will be the opportunity to export any excess bugs to other anammox plants around the world to support other water companies, as they look to introduce a similar process.
Elliot added: "We’ve been really encouraged with the performance of our bugs from Brazil and the Netherlands so far. Our focus now is to fine-tune the process, making the treatment of waste water in this way even more efficient. These tweaks will help to drive down operational costs even further, which is great news for bill payers and the environment."