Dr. Lawrence Goodridge, a microbiologist in the Department of Food Science and who is leading U of G’s wastewater testing initiative, explained how wastewater testing works with Global News. 

Goodridge explained wastewater testing is a common process for collecting specimens and can be carried out automatically or manually. If it’s the latter, samples are collected in so-called balls or torpedoes, with holes for water to pass through, attached to a rope and dropped down an open manhole. Either way, the samples are brought back to a lab to be tested, before the results are sent to the Ontario Ministry of Health.  

Goodridge, the Leung Family professor in Food Safety and director of U of G’s Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety, has been working since the fall of 2020 with colleagues in the School of Engineering and Department of Pathobiology in gathering wastewater samples.