Circular Economy and WWTPs: Water Reuse and Biogas Production

Abstract

Water is the most important shared resource across the entire supply chain, yet wastewater is the largest untapped waste category that is definitely a pillar of the Circular Economy as defined by the EU Commission. Nowadays, most water utilities are considering these aspects in their day-to-day management operations and in the yearly investments they are planning according to their specific needs, implementing innovations for urban water treatment. The IREN Group is an Italian multi-utility involved, among other businesses, in the management of the integrated water cycle. IREN is applying the aforementioned approach to recent upgrades designed, deployed and co-founded by Waste Water Treatment Plants in the framework of opportunities for EU funding programmes. This is the case for (i) the Mancasale WWTP project, for which IREN developed and implemented a tertiary process aimed at effluent reuse for agricultural irrigation purposes and (ii) the Roncocesi WWTP project, in which IREN installed an upgrading system in the plant to produce bio-methane through purification of biogas from the sludge treatment line. In the bigger picture, IREN is a partner of the EU-funded project LIFE + called ReQpro, aimed at developing a specific model of water reclamation and reuse for irrigation of high quality crops. The overall objective of the project is to contribute to the protection of water resources through efficient reclamation and reuse of wastewater for irrigation of agricultural land, substituting for surface water and groundwater resources. IREN is also a partner of Biomether, an EU-funded project aimed at developing an innovative form of biogas upgrade technology promoting the birth of the bio-methane value chain in the Emilia Romagna Region. In that project, IREN aims to reduce the environmental impact of wastewater treatment plants by offering an alternative solution to wastewater management, overcoming the technological and administrative barriers to the production and use of bio-methane. The industrial circular economy experience obtained by IREN on the specific matter is described in the full version of the paper.