In October, the United States Department of Agriculture awarded a five million dollar grant to Georgia Tech's School of Civil and Environmental Engineering in order to develop and implement a pilot project that aims to "decentralize vegetable production" by finding sustainable methods of growing produce in urban areas.

The grant will fund five years of research and assist in the creation and operation of a hydroponic growing system that will utilize wastewater from Georgia Tech's campus sewer system.

A news article found on the Georgia Tech website states that this is the largest USDA grant the university has ever received. The article also states that the proposed project will use a "smart membrane, or nanomaterials, to extract trace contaminants, like endocrine disruptors, heavy metals and pharmaceuticals, [and] the nutrients that are left can be pumped through a vertical hydroponic system to grow produce without adding fertilizer."

Yongsheng Chen, the lead professor for the project, stated that the overall goal is to show that utilizing waste water for urban agriculture environments is socially, environmentally and financially viable and could easily be replicated in other cities across the globe.

To learn more about this project, visit this LINK.