Well-managed wastewater treatment plants, operated correctly, are probably, singularly, the most important barrier for disease spread there is – better than the best vaccine,” says David Graham, professor of ecosystems engineering at Newcastle University. 

Graham is a co-author of a recent United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) report, Bracing for superbugs, which evidences the deadly spread of antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

AMR renders frequently used antibiotics ineffective at treating common bacterial infections, such as pneumonia. The World Health Organization considers it to be one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity today. 

This is for good reason. In 2019, AMR was directly responsible for 1.27 million deaths worldwide, and associated with nearly five million – that’s two million more than coronavirus is estimated to have killed a year later. Left unchecked, fatalities could rise to 10 million annually by 2050, with...