CRITICAL RETURN
FROM WASTE TO WORTH
Critical Return is an engineering services firm that converts groundwater treatment sludge and mining waste into high-value materials used in advanced industrial and semiconductor applications.
Meet our Team
Dr. Tamara R. Etmannski P.Eng.
Cofounder & CEO
Dr. Case M. van Genuchten P.E.
Cofounder & CSO
History
Tam and Case first met as PhD researchers at Oxford and UC Berkeley, brought together by a shared focus on arsenic removal in water treatment. Early on, they recognized an important gap: the arsenic-rich waste generated by treatment systems was largely ignored and poorly managed. A decade later, now based at UBC in Vancouver Canada, and the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland in Copenhagen, they have reunited with a shared mission to upcycle critical raw materials – starting with arsenic.
The Science
CRITICAL RETURN 