Water & Wastewater Treatment

Tackling FOG together The Talk: events This year's WWT Wastewater Conference & Exhibition featured three distinct streams focusing on infrastructure & networks; treatment; and bioresources. Alec Peachey reports. 18 | MARCH 2020 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk S teve Rosser, investment plan- ning manager at South West Water, opened the infrastruc- ture & networks stream with a presentation entitled 'Enabling resilience in wastewater networks through long term planning'. During his presentation Rosser covered off a variety of topics including how water companies and other industry stakehold- ers can work together to develop coherent wastewater management plans. He also spoke about how the water industry can better work with local councils to protect sewers. Rosser talked about Drainage and Wastewater Management Plans (DWMPs) which are the new way to plan for the fu- ture of drainage, wastewater and environ- mental water quality. DWMPs provide the basis for more collaborative and integrat- ed long-term planning by organisations that have interests and/or responsibilities relating to drainage, flooding and protec- some kind of training system that's mandatory that people receive when they work in FSEs." David Holden, building services man- ager UK & Ireland, McDonalds, provided an overview of how the company is trying to tackle FOG. In 2015, and a"er realising it had a problem, McDonalds started testing options to solve the situation. Over an 18-month period six restaurants adopted A panel discussion taking place at WWT's Wastewater Conference. Delegates listen on at the event. tion of the environment. In a session entitled 'Managing FOG, unflushables and plastics', delegates heard from British Water chief executive Lila Thompson about the association's cross-sector initiative FOGWISE - which is designed to get the whole industry to collaborate together to tackle the problem of used fat, oil and grease (FOG) in sewer networks. With more than 560,000km of sewer pipes in the UK, event attendees heard that sewer networks are constantly under threat by the mistreatment of FOG. Thompson highlighted the importance of helping food service establishments (FSEs) understand the correct way to deal with their FOG. She said: "We need to be consistent in our messaging if we're going to make a difference and address FOG ef- fectively. There's a lack of FOG awareness training in some companies, especially in the smaller FSEs where there's a high turnover of staff. We'd like there to be

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