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Since 2014, oil companies reported that they used more than 20 million pounds and 2 million gallons of chemicals in their operations, including at least 16 chemicals the state of California classifies as carcinogens or reproductive toxicants under the state's Proposition 65 law. That recycled wastewater was then sold to irrigation districts largely in Kern County. The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board has allowed the practice for at least four decades and only recently required the oil companies and water districts to disclose the details. EWG detailed its findings in a report released Wednesday, two days before a public meeting of an expert panel convened to study the practice's safety. Although scientists don't know whether using oil field wastewater to grow crops poses a health risk to people who eat the food, the water board has refused to halt the practice until the expert panel releases its findings.

Siemens Water Technologies magnetite ballasted CoMag System, which is already helping municipalities to increase water and wastewater treatment plant clarification performance in confined footprints, is now available for industrial water and wastewater treatment applications.

A second Texas city has begun using treated wastewater to boost drinking water supplies as the state struggles with drought. Wichita Falls is now recycling millions of gallons of wastewater, CBS News reports. The toilet-to-tap program ensures the water is purified to meet government drinking standards; the water is then sent to a treatment plan for additional purification.

Using fracking wastewater to de-ice roads in New York City will likely soon be illegal, following a City Council vote to ban the practice. Fracking wastewater has a high brine content, which makes it useful in salinating roads icy roads. The waste also contains benzene, which the EPA says is a human carcinogen.

A sewage recycling system pioneered by Applied CleanTech (ACT) is reducing a Dutch water board's operational costs by around $1 million a year while reducing sludge by up to 30%. ACT's technology is designed to help industrial and agricultural wastewater treatment plants transform wastewater into raw materials for plastics, insulation, pulp and paper, construction, bio-fuels production, nano-cellulose, and other industries.

Stricter regulations, the explosive growth of new hydraulic fracturing shale oil and gas wells and limited available water resources are driving the popularity of centralized wastewater management in North America, according to Pollution Engineering magazine

An analysis published Feb. 26 in the journal Nature Climate Change shows that the wastewater produced during the processing of palm oil is a significant source of heat-trapping methane in the atmosphere. But the researchers also present a possible solution: capturing the methane and using it as a renewable energy source.

Bear Republic is taking things a step farther: In January, it was the first brewery to buy Cambrian's EcoVolt system, which uses electrically active organisms to clean wastewater for reuse while creating a high-quality biogas that helps offset the heat and electricity needed for Bear's production process

South Africa, where gas and oil company, Sasol, has partnered with GE Power & Water to develop a new system for providing a high level of treatment for industrial wastewater that also recovers biogas for power generation. The new system, called Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor Technology (AnMBR), is transferrable to other industries

Wastewater treatment and renewable energy production can be costly endeavors. However, if valuable chemicals could be extracted from wastewater, or if algae could more easily be used to turn carbon dioxide from the air into biofuel, companies could profitably pursue such projects. Researchers from Arizona State University (ASU) and the Chinese Academy of Science & Technology are working to make this possible.

A vacuum distillation system by H2O GmbH has reduced the amount of wastewater produced and saved more than €100,000 ($108,280) annually for thermofin, a German metalworking company.

Water and waste giant Veolia has saved the city of Poughkeepsie, New York, millions while improving efficiencies throughout the city's wastewater system and facilities over the course of a 35-year environmental contract.

A glass of wine can require as much as 14 gallons of water to make, prompting Fetzer Vineyards to try a wriggly wastewater solution invented in Chile.

In response to water scarcity, municipalities are figuring out ways to treat sewage less like waste and more like a resource.

Arizona State University Professor Peter Lammers and researchers at New Mexico State University are developing an energy-positive wastewater treatment method using a special kind of algae. The researchers believe that the algal systems ultimately could eliminate sewage farms' electricity bills, which can account for anything up to 60 percent of operating costs today, or even generate a surplus. 

More than 200 million gallons of contaminated wastewater from a fertilizer plant in central Florida leaked into one of the state's main underground sources of drinking water after a massive sinkhole opened up beneath a storage pond, a phosphate company said Friday. The sinkhole, discovered by a worker on Aug. 27, is believed to reach down to the Floridan aquifer, the company said in a news release.

According to a recent billion dollar allocation of taxpayer money for water recycling programs, drinking toilet water is one way. Don't throw up quite yet. Water recycling refers the process by which municipalities process wastewater so that it's okay to drink. It's a very safe, very clean process and might even produce water that's cleaner than what's coming out of your tap.

Chevron Energy Solutions will design and build a waste-to-energy plant at Broward County, Fla.'s wastewater treatment facility

From industry giants thinking beyond freshwater to startups tackling the wastewater, here are the names to watch.