When the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD) was formed in 1889, its mission was to reclaim and treat wastewater and flood water to protect the health and safety of its citizens. In 1900, perhaps its most notable achievement was to reverse the flow of the Chicago River. The MWRD serves an area of 260 square miles, the city of Chicago and 43 suburbs and 2.4 million people. There are a handful of MWRD sites around Chicago with their Stickney site being the largest wastewater treatment facility in the world.

For several decades there has been mostly painted steel and some aluminum handrail around the miles and miles of walkways surrounding the pools at the Stickney facility. The executive director of the MWRD, David St. Pierre, wanted a lower maintenance solution than having to re-paint the handrail every several years. The solution was hot-dip galvanizing with potentially no maintenance for several decades. Not only was the project to replace all the painted handrail with galvanized handrail but other areas that never had handrail would also have galvanized handrail.

In 2015, the MWRD had a five-year plan to upgrade all the sites, taking on the challenge of their motto of "All resources are available and should be reused. Waste is a word to be removed from their vocabulary." With nearly 23 miles of hot dip galvanized handrail at the Stickney site alone, the MWRD and their plan of no waste, sustainable practices and cost-effective solutions will help them meet the challenges of the next 100 years.