Water & Wastewater Treatment

WWT November 2019

Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine

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In Focus: Resource recovery ture, and delivering real efficiency and cost benefits for the future," says Tony McKenna, head of business development and optimisation services, Veolia. Veolia Optimisation Services aims to help clients tackle these challenges by reducing operational costs of wastewater plans. The company's approach to water and wastewater management involves working directly with existing operations to implement and sustain new operating regimes, while benchmarking against global asset performance. "Outcomes include energy efficiency, reduced chemical usage, reduced carbon footprint, improved resilience, reduced capital maintenance spend and a set of optimised business processes and associated operating philosophy," says McKenna. Vale agrees there are complex chal- lenges ahead for water companies, but believes the major obstacles are more around regulation and public percep- tion rather than operational concerns. "In order for an investment in resource recovery technology to be viable we need to achieve a reasonable price for the recovered material we generate, this is unlikely if it is still perceived as a 'waste' product. Gaining 'end of waste status' for recovered materials will be an important component of this," he says. Customers are o†en resistant to the prospect of wastewater recovery, primar- ily due to a lack of awareness and con- cerns over the re-use of "waste" products. While more research is undoubtedly re- quired to improve public perception, Vale does not see this as an insurmountable hurdle. "I think there is an opportunity to tap into the increasing public demand for sustainable products," he explains. "It may be that in the same way as organic food the public will be prepared to pay a premium for sustainable recovered mate- rials and this will make the financial case for investing in resource recovery more compelling." As further research will be critical to help move the industry forward, UKWIR is hopeful that its programme around max- imising recovery of useful resources and achieving zero waste will provide some much-needed clarity, particularly around the value of waste and its economic vi- ability. "There is huge potential to remove valuable resources from water and waste- water, but we really need to understand the whole cycle and get to the heart of the most efficient and economically viable point of recovery," insists Steve Kaye, chief executive, UKWIR. The research programme will involve a series of projects on issues such as improving resource recovery efficiencies, while ensuring these practices are com- monplace and championed across the industry. Over the course of the next year, the UKWIR team will be inviting universities, consultants and other key stakeholders to get involved and help deliver these re- search projects. It is this type of industry- wide collaboration that will be vital to help drive innovation and maximise resource recovery from the creation and operation of valuable assets. Promoting innovation Currently, the value of recovered materials is not overtly taken into account in how Ofwat carries out its economic regulatory duties, but the regulator is encouraging water companies to find innovative ways to improve their processes and efficiency through its comparative benchmarking regulation. "If net costs can be reduced through additional income from sale of recovered materials then companies can reap the benefits of improved efficiency," says Fergusson. The regulator has been consulting on ways to improve the uptake of innova- tion and hopes to see a transformational change in how innovation is tested and successful innovations are adopted across the water sector. "We hope that encourag- ing a transformation in innovation will ensure that resource recovery gets a seat at the table and we can forge a way to Caption 16 | NOVEMBER 2019 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk • KEY STATS • It is estimated that global freshwater withdrawals reach 3,928 km³ per year. Approximately 44 per cent (1,716 km³ per year) of this water is consumed, mainly by agriculture through evaporation in irrigated cropland. The remaining 56 per cent (2,212 km³ per year) is released into the environment as wastewater in the form of municipal and industrial effluent and agricultural drainage water. • Wastewater is roughly composed of 99 per cent water and one per cent suspended, colloidal and dissolved solids. In centralised treatment systems, wastewater is collected from a large number of users, like an urban area, and treated at one or more sites. Collection costs account for over 60 per cent of the total budget for wastewater management in a centralised system, particularly in communities with low population densities. • Worldwide, the annual capital expenditure on wastewater infrastructure by utilities has been estimated at US$104 billion (£84.4 billion). Extractable phosphorus resources are predicted to become scarce or exhausted in the next 50 to 100 years. An estimated 22 per cent of global phosphorus demand could be satisfied by recycling human urine and faeces worldwide. (Source: UNESCO)

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