LSU Research Bites: A Simple $4 Tool Could Turn Sewage into Actionable Public Health Data
December 03, 2025
In environmental health microbiology, a field that examines the interplay between microorganisms, environmental factors, and human health, a paradox exists: Infectious disease risks and burdens are highest where environmental data are most limited.
According to Aaron Bivins, an assistant professor and researcher in the LSU Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, this paradox arises largely because our field data-collection techniques are too expensive and unwieldy to be readily applied in low-resource settings. He and collaborators at the University of Waterloo are working to address this problem.
Bivins' lab recently published results from its deployment of a passive wastewater sampler that uses small pellets of activated charcoal to capture microorganisms from water for testing.
Gold-standard wastewater samplers cost between $10,000 and $25,000 to purchase and install. "Our passive sampler costs about $4,” Bivins said. The sampler can be anchored on a string and tossed into a sewage line. While submerged, granular activated carbon "passively" absorbs microorganisms. Researchers can then pull the sampler out, wash off the microbes, and test the resulting solution.
Over a three-month study that deployed and tested 38 passive samplers, Bivins and colleagues were able to detect the genetic material of viruses, including SARS-CoV-2 and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), and bacteria that cause illness. They even detected genes that make bacteria resistant to certain antibiotics. The rate at which their sampler absorbs microbes is also mathematically predictable, meaning this $4 sampler can produce quantitative data for public health surveillance from wastewater.
“We have also begun deploying these into local surface waters to test for viruses and bacteria. And soon, students in a Microbiology of the Built Environment course I'm teaching this semester will pilot test a version for sampling the air in Patrick F. Taylor Hall on the LSU campus.”
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