Climate-friendly wastewater management

Just one day after the start of summer on the calendar, temperatures in some parts of Germany are set to rise to 37° C. Despite heavy rainfall at the same time, water shortages of previous years continue to worsen. Short extreme showers cannot be sufficiently absorbed by either the waterworks or nature. The result is flooding. In addition to the lack of rainfall and high temperatures, soil sealing is exasperationg the flooding cycle, even in communities with a declining population.

Politicians are responding to emergencies - not only are water-saving measures and bans on rock gardens being imposed on private households, but companies that use billions of litres of water a year will be subject to special charges. Yet environmental protection measures do not come without side effects - one example is the phasing out of lignite mining. Enormous quantities of groundwater were drawn off to keep mining sites dry. However, after the closure, this water is suddenly no longer being artificially channelled into the rivers. Disused open-cast mines have to be artificially filled with water from rivers in order to stabilise them.

Part of the solution could be infiltration measures and separation systems for wastewater. In newly developed areas, not only rainwater is increasingly being separated from household wastewater, but also grey water from black water. In a model housing estate near Lübeck, toilet wastewater with a low water content is to be converted into electricity in a model housing estate’s own biogas plant and residues into heat in a combined heat and power plant. Grey water is purified by a plant-based sewage treatment plant and returned to nature. Until now, the collected black water waste has been transported to the local sewage treatment plant.

Existing municipalities can also support groundwater and local water bodies with the rapid discharge of simply treated precipitation by means of simple separation. In most buildings, the discharge of grey and black water is already separated. The aim is also to achieve so-called „sponge cities“ that can absorb and retain rainwater without discharging it into the sewerage system and sewage treatment plants. This is also intended to prevent flood damage.

As a member of the German Association for Water, Wastewater and Waste and with the software solution for pit emptying, Dr. Ing. Wandrei GmbH is committed to resourceconserving and sustainable recycling - for the sake of our environment.