Een nieuwe waterzuiveringsinstallatie
We are working on a new water purification project near our head office in Halle. The installation will soon purify the water from 3 sites, with a production capacity of 11 m³ of drinking water per hour.
By purifying waste and rain water, the group aims to reduce its city water demand on the 3 sites by 90%. Geert Van Liefferinge, water purification project manager: "Today, 15% of our drinking water comes from treated waste water. With this plant, we can double this percentage." The new installation also purifies water from our brand-new crate washing system.
Water hergebruiken
In 2001, the group already built a water treatment plant near Fine Food Meat, the meat-processing site. Since 2004, we have been upgrading the treated water to drinking water to be used again in a closed loop in production. Two years later, we added an installation to do the same with rain water.
Lize Linclau, R&D project engineer: "We learned quite a lot from this pioneering work in cooperation with De Watergroep. Back then, we had to challenge the market with our own ideas and again, for Dassenveld, the ideas came from us."
Meer dan zuiveren alleen
It was important for the project team to find a good balance between technology, quality and efficiency. "In the longer run, it is more interesting to concentrate the purification process on one site. The project includes more than purifying waste water. It also involves the construction of underground and above-ground water pipes," says Ysaline Thillaye du Boullay, Water Project Engineer. The head office at Wilgenveld, which is about 1,200 m from the plant, will be connected to it. "This means we have to put in a double pipeline: waste water in one direction and purified drinking water in the other."
Onderzoek op kleinere schaal
"We do not want to leave it at that," says Lize. "Since our branch stores represent one third of our city water consumption, we want to limit that too." However, that is a very different story. The branch stores are spread all over the country. For them, we are examining remote consumption monitoring, quality assurance and efficient maintenance. "It is possible to purify any water to any quality, but ... it also has to be economically efficient. Another challenge for our suppliers."
