for the plans ah billions of late as of drinking water flush away our waist every day. huge drain and sewage systems and needed to clean it. is our giant purifier without these facilities, the stench would be unbearable and disease would spread janice, i change the top priority, we can get sick. sewage is also very wasteful and harmful to the environment. recycling nutrients and removing toxins is very difficult. besides we have to get past using water is a transport media. it's far too precious for that one. and this murky medium is much more than that. it's also a source of hidden information. golly susie let who sewage holds everything that makes up our lives. 0 to lives visual. and a fascinating research subject. when i was 6 years old, i always knew i wanted to be a scientist. for the 1st time for this documentary, research is compare the wastewater of 2 capitals in detail. do berlin is lived differently from parisians. the sphere of them, i would not have thought that it would be so different compared to paris, citizenship sewage, dangerous, valuable, and rich in information ah, moon. paris in the dazzling evening sun passes by along the sin, have no idea of the complex and intricate world beneath their feet. deep below the city canals stretch that 2600 kilometers almost the distance to st. petersburg. these constantly flowing and somewhat pungent, well, these part of every day life for waste water analyst, olivia rou. slow. this jojo. so just my name is olivia bruce login on the laptop, director of ca. yep. the greats of paris, sanitation, authority credit we collect and clean the wastewater in paris. i was in caea purifies parisians. waste every day, 2400000000 liters of dirty water around 1000 olympic swimming pools. ru slow extracts a small part of it, for his analysis to his room. it was, was in san jose. well, every day, equity, 365 days. yet we have to sample the raw sewage of the inflow of the plan and the treated sewage of the out classroom is fair to plenty on saturdays and sundays. we call the samples and processed them on monday. and so we get results for every day of leander deloney a don't go, we then analyzed the samples in the lab as required by law is entities excellent. m on there found a little while but the samples taken on this day have a very special purpose which reveals itself 1000 kilometers to the northeast at the gates of berlin. because at the vast man's doff sewage treatment plant there, a very similar scene is taking place at the same time. he had 2, a couple of analysts sample waste water. ah, it's each month on been the. i'm frederick's each month department, head of sewage treatment plant analysis. my department monitors what goes into the plant, ryan, how the plant is running. what comes out of the plans come on and what can be safely released back into the water owners shooting but what are the chemist looking for in the waste water? for the 1st time, they want to compare the sewage of the 2 european capitals in detail. the samples are tested for well over 80 substances proceed to isis. lighter is the same thing happening in paris and berlin. here we would think so because we have domestic waste water or what i, flushed and the toilet. and so today was to you, i'm spot paris may have different industrial influences than waiters in it's interesting to see what the people actually consume when it comes to micro pollutants extra from residues of medicines, industrial chemicals, drugs and such can be quite different as kindergarten to shows fun, said this is hilda vieira. it's hard to know what to expect from comparing berlin and parish me pores for the classic parameters, nitrogen, phosphorus, and chemical oxygen. oh, i would expect the littles to be quite similar on the width already shows se juvenile a bucket assures on put it might be different from micro pollutants. early me here we my find difference is related to eating. hobbies and care products used to value motel to suave see each man and ru slow will examine the dirty water closely in the coming weeks. there supported by one of the world's leading waste water analysis institute. the institute for analytical research at the fresenius university of applied sciences in each dine lab director thomas, can epa will personally examine the samples for trace components. ah, yeah. i mean it's got wife lashmar come and we've just received 2 bottles. silly one from paris and one from berlin wu dotted on. we've had a good look at that. and are of course, very excited to see what our examination, when the subsequent analysis will bring to light on the analysis will take 2 weeks . will the researches find differences? if so, would this mean that parisians live differently or are exposed to different chemicals and consume different substances than berlin's? ah, a recent example shows how rich waste water is in information to curb the corona, virus shops, restaurants, and public institutions closed all over europe. in spring 2020 governments imposed lock downs, but still the hospitals were overwhelmed. the uncertainty was great. how many people were actually infected? how many unreported cases were their research has worked feverishly to bridge the gap? see now knowledge french verola just sebastian view itself is one of them. he works for the paris waterworks and monitors the drinking and waste water for pathogens. richie, this is lucy po oh, gal de la la puzzles do monitoring wastewater for pathogens. is nothing new voices, but what is new is connecting these measurements in waste water to the health of the general population. ah, it doesn't entail directly producer in 2015 you had said proved this connection for the 1st time in gastro intestinal viruses. sick people excrete part goals of pathogens in their feces. from there, they enter the sewage system and end up in the water treatment plants. good, thick and show that the number of virus particles in waste water is related to the number of sick people in the population. the more particles in the sewage, the more sick people there are. but is that also true with corona viruses all the pathogens even detectable in waste water? and if so, can we predict how quickly corona will spread in february 2028th through its air and his team. one of the 1st research groups world wide began to systematically search the parents cesspool. for sauce c o v to twice a week, they sampled wastewater at the inlets of 6 parisians, sewage treatment plants, 11 more treatment plans from the metropolitan area would also like to be added if you them all of sess sequel pretty that it's quite complicated to get a perfectly representative sample of what's in circulation yet because the waste water flows, i saw a huge denay for corn for the shop. ah, the analysts did in fact find the corona virus in the waste water. but the amount fluctuated greatly from week to week. why? if it's air and his team investigated and hit upon an astonishing explanation. when it rains a lot, the rain mixes with the waste water in the sewage system. large quantities of water reach the treatment plants, the samples that the analysts finally take a highly diluted. and thus also contain few of irises using a computer algorithm. vert say i came to grips with this distortion. now the waste water data tell him how wide spread the corona virus really is in the population. but that's not all even earlier than the health authorities who get their information from the hospitals. food sets can see if infections are increasing or decreasing. fog wander minerva with a few of soviet the end of june 2020, even before hospital numbers increased. we were able to observe an increased by willard in the spiritual mob, especially for that is the force which unfortunately foretold the 2nd wave that was to come after lecount sewage as an early warning system for corona, it works of itself. the stinky sludge is much more than just waste. it's also a source of valuable information. looking back into history, sewage has not been around for very long. in the middle ages, faces ended up in latrines, chamber pots, cesspits, or simply in the gossip. cities often disposed of their waste in nearby bodies of water pathogens repeatedly got into the drinking water or food and spread . the result was disease and death. blue london introduced the 1st comprehensive sewage system in 18. 59, many other european and american cities followed suit home. low lying chicago even raised parts of its city area, including huge buildings by several meters to allow the feces to flow away. at 1st, the cities only built sewage systems to discharge their untreated sewage into rivers and lakes. but they became more and more filthy, killing the animals that lived there. soon, the 1st sewage treatment plants were built to treat human waste before releasing it into the environment. the system of su as an treatment plans revolutionized health safety, but it also brings a few disadvantages every day, the world's toilets use 6 times as much drinking water as the needs of the entire african continent. not only fielding the system, but maintaining it comes with enormous costs. berlin's, more than 9600 kilometer long sewage system is monitored here from this control station. more than 300 palms transport the waste water of 3600000 people to treatment plants. if anything goes wrong and alarm sounds in the control room, ah, ah, ah, have your hunger alarm the guest? the alarm went off here. however, some one went into a building and open the door of the team. from the control center investigates, an employee had entered a pumping station without checking in. oh, clear them apart from unauthorized access. the alarm is usually triggered by blockages. it's marteen cheap lakes job to clear them . viani gar law in many ways. via von jana, yvonne, we would like to clean the suction chamber. thanks. lucille, i thought by the sewage arrives in the suction chamber before the pumps move it on to the treatment plant. but all kinds of waste collect in the damp chamber. does things unfun eye upon woods by it indeed of boasting mit good listen van couldn't the since anything from a number that gets carried away from construction sites to think well we once had canal pipes 3 meters longings. it's a 60 centimeters in diameter. limited will washed away from a construction site and a rainstorm stocking, likeness. ready ah, heavy rains can wash anything, not properly secured down into the sewage system. but the feces themselves also require a great deal of cleaning effort. on inventing the walls usually collect a bit of turns, but also quite a lot of grease. when we hose off the fat so that it doesn't build up too much yearbook wet wipes, cent fiber cloths which do not belong in the sewage system or a particular challenge. is kind of father to mock out. i'm in handles the here come, our consumer won't be but in vague to supply, but he can is that soon? the small fiver cloth may seem harmless. but going through the pump and sewage system cleaning cloths and bits of thread get tangled. an unbidden global. we've calculated that this extra cleaning costs, the water company's almost $1000000.00 euros per year. first item, you an oil up or yacht sous? it's the cost that diesel, susan, i don't mean normal cleaning. i'm doing it. i mean, the extra work created by, for example, isn't the tangled mass of cleaning towels. it's susan the, somebody's beauty that's often gleneagles to of my, of, ah, paris, to has to work to keep the canals from clogging. a tried and true method is the so called battle van a several me to long boat that workers lower into the canals and push in front of them like a plow. experts estimate that renewing the sewage system in germany alone will cost around $12500000000.00 euros per year. in the coming decades, by comparison, the countries spent a total of 14200000000 euros on road construction in 2020. and the su, as in pumps are only the 1st part of the system the largest sewage treatment plant in europe and suppose, and 2nd largest in the world, is in a share north of paris. with you through the only georgia oliver morgan saw soon did that as this is the purification giant mold, we often call it that it inside the flow rate and the amount of pollution removed. it's one of the most im forcing sewage treatment plan in the world news you did process is the waste water of around as $5000000.00 inhabitants go about 1500000 cubic meters per day in dry weather like today, exhausted by that's really a lot of people go in fact, a share basically works like any other sewage treatment plant in the world. but on a much larger scale. hidden in these boxes, the screens filter cools waste by the ton from fibers toilet paper and bottles, the cigarette butts. but what would you measures gotten vannador? ha ha, we remove one full dumpster or cigarette butts. could dan here saw anthony's arsenal . jaw them? i think after that also reducing the finest screening to get out even smaller trash division. he thought. chiseled profile. countless basin, separate grease and sand in the next step, primarily from food scraps all what rainwater washes up. after that, the actual treatment begins in so cold activated sludge tanks, the sewage is enriched with oxygen. the micro organisms that break down the nutrients in the sludge need, this oxygen to live. the work of microorganisms creates in broad terms, to products, purified, water, which can flow off into the environment. and biomass, which sinks to the bottom of the basin consisting largely of the bacteria that have consumed the nutrients but the oxygen supply in particular is expensive. of all the public facilities in a city, sewage treatment plan consumed the most energy on average. ah, the system is also vulnerable to the effects of climate change. during drought and dry spells, the water gets muddy and the plans don't function as well. and during heavy rainfall, the treatment basins flood, in extreme cases, the sewage escapes into the environment untreated. it came up under his films that say he climate change is indeed an issue for us biondi talking. we have both heavy rainfall on one side gate and dry spells on the other in here, the money is not enough. we also need ideas. surely, inventions, klein v and certainly more awareness light and a different way of handling water as a resource because those of us at, at so the current system needs to be changed and expanded to continue to clean reliably in the future. in the meantime, the sewage plant analysts have been hard at work in the labs. now the results of the extensive tests. irene and all i look on the loo knob on here, we have the analysis report as you took, the main findings is not available to all the sewage of both parisians and berliners. looks pretty similar. ah, the largest chair of the one late as sample is of course water. second is this. so cold calls matter, a mix of a wide variety of materials. sand from the streets, bio mass from feces and so on. in the 3rd major group, the scientists find carbon, phosphorus, and nitrogen excrete it through urine and sees some of which are already dissolved in the water. ah, but are there any differences between berlin and paris? civil russian got bows. were there any surprises in our sample? not relays i, it was all within a range that we would expect fellowship. but what was interesting is that we have completely different levels compared to the power sample cuz i would not have thought that is about oh, other levels. in fact, all the substance groups studied are about twice as high in berlin as they are in paris. see each month and ru slow are amazed by the vast difference. they had not expected, such large deviations. but why, of the levels in paris? only half as high? is it the water consumption for showering cooking and toilet flushing? a berlin i use is around 110 late as of drinking water per day. a parisian uses 122100 and 50 late is a little more, but too little for such a difference. the reason probably has to do with paris is 150 year old. so a system, it's crumbling in many places. large amounts of groundwater as well as run off from construction sites and various cleaning flow into it. so it's not a case of parisians and berlin is ex, greeting different amounts of nutrients. in the current system, micro organisms break down a large part of the nutrients in the waste water, which are found in the bio mass at the bottom of the tanks. the sludge is then usually burned afterwards to produce heat and electricity. the nutrients burn up as well or on the guarded with the ash. ah, this is particularly disastrous in the case of phosphorus, an increasingly scarce rule element. experts estimate that the natural deposits from moroccan chinese and american mines will only last for another 50 to 100 years . but can phosphorus not be recovered from sewage? the vast months dorf treatment plant in berlin is working on this challenge. plant boss, me sheil kemp, shows how it could be done ah, it doesn't here use your kettle sewage sludge is bubbling in this oversize pot. it's heated to 80 degrees celsius and then mixed with magnesium chloride. o. darmesh of hair done and then magnesium, ammonium, phosphate comes out. i'd always magnesium, ammonium, phosphate forms and settles on the boiler floor when dry. it's a gray powder containing about 10 percent of the phosphorus from the sewage sludge he's a father, then. these phosphates have been specially precipitated here and can now be used as fertilizer. no bad. unfortunately producing the fertilizer is still too expensive to be competitive. back to the sewage comparison. what about the trade particle analysis? thomas napa and nicholas coca analyzed the waste water of the 2 large cities for more than 80 substances has decides drug residues, both medicinal and elicit as well as other chemicals from urban areas. were the criteria, and what were the results via hm rushed, were vieza, which mats were the policy them? we found quite high levels of the paint color, paracetamol and the paris treatment plant inflow around point one, milligrams per liter home crude, which is very unusual on govern dish between paris and berlin. sewage paracetamol is present in a ratio of $3.00 to $1.00. quite the difference. ah, it's a one time sample. so the results could be pure chance. only regular measurements over several weeks would clarify where the paracetamol use is actually higher in paris. still, thomas, can epa has a suspicion? ah. does it sat on nick? this is a south 9 me too big of an informal young endorsement crush. i was lucius. it may be because this medicine is only available like this at pharmacies in germany and, and is just an over the counter drug in paris. escape is he that would have to be verified them, o m, him or perhaps because different pain killers are preferred and different populations named but no class of substances better illustrates this subtle ways in which residues tale of urban affairs. then narcotics. here analysts find a rich assortment of drugs. hooker, income queen found hardly any difference in cocaine concentrations between berlin and paris on in berlin. however, we measured a much higher concentration of amphetamines. afield in paris, we were unable to detect any amphetamines and much lower concentrations of methamphetamines and m. dna causing ocwen's and consume. cocaine is used in both cities, not so with ecstasy and speed. berlin is consumed more of these than parisians. this is confirmed by a europe wide study comparing urban and municipal wastewater residues. in this study, berlin is a far ahead of parisians, in ecstasy, consumption surpassed only by zurich, utrecht, and amsterdam. oh, how much sewage reveals is shown by a research project clipper and cook a working on with the federal criminal police office. the project same is to track down drug and explosives, laboratories. actually, the research is confidential, but for this documentary, the scientists opened the left doors was not the socials of the students on why as wastewater, so compelling slices, or it's directional, understood if something enters the sewage system at any point, i can predict when and where it could be found was indulged in one sort of his on cocaine speed. met. synthetic drugs can't simply be picked from the tree, but have to be cooked in the lab. these produces large amounts of chemical waste or elegant history of from comfort or mean in illegal amphetamine production about 30 kilograms of waste or generated to produce one kilogram of drugs. tons of corrosion event, sometimes highly toxic liquids left behind as waste in the production of synthetic drugs, drunk cooks often stole them near their labs and later move on to another location . all they simply pull them into the nearest body of water. time and again, they also pull the dangerous brew into the sewage system. what ah, can the criminals be caught in the act? to find out the chemists are installing a highly complex, measuring machine at a sewage treatment plant in hess, it cook and connect, developed the device themselves. it works all tournaments, leap and can detect a large number of tray substances in real time. the idea if a suspicious substance reaches the treatment plant inflow, it automatically triggers an alarm. in numerous experiments, the research is test, how reliable the machine is at the inflow, but also many kilometers away. they pull chemicals from drug production into the sewage system, and then check whether the device detects the substances and indeed, despite tiny quantities and long distances, it succeeds. with this knowledge, investigators can now work their way up from sewer in flow to sewage in flood sampling everywhere. eventually reaching the hidden lab, the system is still in the pilot phase. so we'll europe police soon be preemptively and comprehensively scanning waste water for suspicious substances. this i'm in funds and setting up sensor networks is of course a bit of science fiction. and then we have to ask if this is what we want as a society woods. ah, the am vog labs in switzerland one of the largest water research institutes in the world. here engineer kite ood, it examines a substance that disgusts many human urine. o, as, as the goal is to recover the nutrients from the urine. those move all the nutrients, not just nitrogen from not just phosphorus, squawk to recycle all the ingredients. however, who does needs the urine in its pure form, not mixed with feces and other waste. ah, a unique research building shows that this is not so difficult. the recently opened water hub. ah, the modern building houses, apartments, offices and conference rooms. ah . but chi would at, he's clearly focused on something else. ah. was it's up to the to machine though, even if you can't see it from the toilet. but the urine is separated at the front of this when you sit down and painted, the urine flow slowly down the wall. the pheasant opening here and the urine flows into it. she's when you flush afterwards, flush water actually flows over this opening rock almost no water gets into this year and i'm a kind of t post effect. most of the urine flows into the narrow opening below the bulge the torrent of water that flushes down the sees bubbles over the opening. ah, the various waste waters then reach the basement via separate types. the shower and washing machine water is only slightly contaminated and is therefore cold light grey water. heavy grey water comes from the dishwasher. for example. it contains fats and oils, so he's dirtier black water transports the theses and yellow water. urine on that. the soil in this, in the, in this we're in, is pumped into this reactor here. on the brown. we see here is bacteria. ah, p contains large amounts of ammonium, normally the substance gases into the air causing that unpleasant oda who dead bacteria though converted into ammonium nitrate. this means the urine no longer stinks, and more importantly, the nitrogen from the compound is retained. would it then passes the bacterial mixture through an activated carbon filter to extract the drug residues denomination consultation during off than simon honda far for during the foreman i was cranked, then you get this concentrated fertilizer. it has to be diluted $100.00 to $1.00. before use this and it looks like this. so brown, the se, and now it doesn't smell like urine does, and this is a very safe process. it's also safe that the from federal department of economics has actually given us a fertilizer permit for this product. looks not bad, but what about black water? that's what linda estrada and her team are investigating. a few labs down now is tease people like i when i was 6 years old. i always knew i wanted to be a scientist. but obviously that's not true to make something useful out of the fecal water mixture. they swirl it in small sample containers and treat it with so called condition is a lot of people think of as what i put in my hair in the morning. and so they are chemicals that we add to the solution that can change the charged properties. so that adult particles can come together because because when they're dispersed, they're floating in the liquid or does after the liquid. can we bring them together and then they can settle out and then we can remove them. so condition is ensure that the solids clumped together, but exactly the right amount of chemical is needed. if too little is used, the solids remain dissolved too much, and the stirring rod gums up as we see clearly in the experiment ah ah, the separated faces can be processed into compost or burned as pellets. strada sees the future in d centralized menu, a processing plants instead of pumping waste water over long distances to treatment plans. it could be used locally. so if we can look at smaller scale systems that don't require drinking water to transport our waists, then we can treat closer to the source. we use less energy with more resource recovery. arianna crowder is from the light in its institute of vegetable and ornamental crops in girls, barren south of berlin. i. she's investigating a system that works without water is transport. the research team has set up dry toilets at several locations in the city. they also separate urine and feces using the tea pot effect, but do not use water to flush the faces. an turn, la vandal, aka a normal flushing toilet. for inside a wall, we've got odd material. the scientists regularly collect the theses from a tank. processing continues at the local landfill. ah ah, the straw and feces mixture is placed in a container which can be tightly sealed. inside the bio mass begins to ferment reaching temperatures of up to 70 degrees celsius and killing pathogens and germs. oh, ah, come posting, begin. 7 weeks later, crowds and barca mixed the disinfected feces with plant charcoal and minerals and turn it regularly. after 8 weeks, the menu is ready to stand here and who wants to live here. as under, there were producing a human fertilizer to be added to the soil reference again about it's supposed to nourish the plans and also to maintain the humans in the soil best. this is very important for long term soil fertility, and wouldn't that's by play because humans enables the soil to store water and nutrients below than the annapolis ah, in the future at festivals, straight parties and construction science, dry toilets could replace chemical ones. but processing human waste in metropolitan areas like paris and berlin completely without water would be a radical change. converting the old system is costly and for many people on attractive as each household would have to collect its own excrement, blue in paris, their 1st trying a new ultra filtration plant that cleans the waste water before it enters the sand . ah, ah, of us fail they'll said, does it happens in the 2nd part where we installed 0.035 micron ultra filtration membrane 0, which is really very, very small. do puberty, base a waste water treatment plants a to realize a grand dream in paris. at the 2024 olympics, the swimming competitions will be held in the sand directly in front of the eiffel tower. in berlin, the waste water treatment system is also being improved here, an ozone treatment system and a new phosphorus filter, a being built by it is easy. ng with our very tight walter cycle. we have to think about future generations to wanting. belinda's want the spray to become a swimming area, the swimming competition that takes place regularly shows that already further along than in paris. this may also be because the decades berlin has been discharging waste water into nearby lakes, including take a lake in summer, countless people use the lake, so the water quality has to be right. berlin achieves this. we the natural help. the lake wood has seeps into the sandy soil over many decades. in the process, the water is cleaned and gradually flows into the ground water pumped up. it's good enough to drink. ah, nature has strong cleansing power, but it has its limits. the challenge is to find a finally balance system that protects the environment and at the same time in shows that the treasures of wastewater a not lost ah, to the point, strong opinions, clear positions, international perspectives with russia, 6 month war on ukraine up ended the lives of people throughout the region, driving a wedge between neighbors, friends and families. tragic triangle is put in destroy ukraine. fabulous and russia. join us on to the point to that point. in 30 minutes on d. w. is the end of the pandemic in sight. we show what it could look like will return to normal and we visit those who are finding it difficult with successes in our weekly coping 19 special 910 minutes on d, w. o. and 50 years ago, the international gathering of peace and co operation becomes the scene of a horrible tragedy. arab terrorists, armed with sub machine guns, went to the headquarters of the israeli team and immediately killed one man. and that this will be the last time i saw him life or worse, fears realized tonight, they're all gone. how i witnesses experienced the terrible events and this, the world should not forget the low shuttle, the $972.00 olympic massacre. start september 3rd on d w. ah, this is d w news, and these are our top stories. ukraine says electricity has been restored in the bridge and around the sap at asia nuclear power plant after the facility was cut off from the power grid for hours. he crime is blinding brushing.