In a celebratory signing ceremony held on Tuesday, a collaborative agreement to install and study the benefits of Israel’s Applied CleanTech’s revolutionary Sewage Recycling System (SRS™) in a Dutch wastewater treatment facility (WWTP) and a Dutch paper mill was signed. The initiative brought together a host of Dutch organizations, companies and governmental bodies: Agentschap NL, Smurfit Kappa Roermond Papier, Israel Innovations, Aa en Maas Water Board, KCPK (Center of Competence Paper and Board), Stowa (Organization of Applied Research in Water Management) and TNO (Applied Research Center).
Applied CleanTech’s Sewage Recycling System (SRS™) changes the concept of how wastewater is treated. It prevents approximately half of the sludge from ever being formed and creates recyclable materials by converting the bio-solids into Recyllose™ – a new sterilized product based on cellulose extracted from the wastewater, which is automatically packed into a reusable commodity and transported to paper, construction, plastic and energy industries. This process reduces over 50% of sludge formation, cuts up to 30% of WWTP operational costs, and significantly increases the WWTP capacity.
According to the collaboration agreement, the SRS™ will be installed for a test period in early 2014 at Aa en Maas Water Board municipal WWTP at Aarle-Rixtel followed by the industrial process water treatment at a leading paper producing company Smurfit Kappa Roermond Papier. Assuming the outcome will be successful as expected, all parties hope to expand the collaboration throughout the Netherlands.
The implications could be tremendous. If implemented throughout all WWTP’s in the Netherlands, the resulted savings in wastewater treatment operational costs could accumulate to millions of Euros, alongside the enormous environmental benefits.
Applied CleanTech Chief Executive Officer Dr. Refael Aharon said: “We are delighted to start our first project in the Netherlands and we hope that after a successful trial period, our sewage mining technology will be installed across the Netherlands ensuring a greener, power efficient future for generations to come.”
Job Rosenhart, Energy Advisor for Dutch Industry at Agentschap NL, said: “The Dutch water industry is a worldwide leader water treatment and water management. Aa en Maas water board, supported by Stowa and Smurfit Kappa Roermond Papier has chosen to cooperate with Applied CleanTech due to their unique solution and revolutionary approach to problem solving. In a broader sense, this agreement is strategic as it launches a new era of cooperation between Israel and the Netherlands in water and energy. We view this cooperation as strategic due to the cultural compatibility and complimentary needs and abilities of both peoples, and hope it would be the one of many such successful ventures between our two nations.”
Founded in 2007, Applied CleanTech is a groundbreaking sewage mining solution provider of recycling systems for wastewater treatment plants. The company provides a revolutionary approach: recycling bio-solids before they become useless sludge. This is achieved by Applied CleanTech’s Sewage Recycling System (SRS™), a compact system that extracts and recycles wastewater bio-solids on-site. Integrated into wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), the SRS™ reduces the amount of sewage sludge formation, an ongoing costly nuisance. The extracted bio-solids are automatically packed into an odorless, reusable and resalable commodity product – Recyllose™, usable for paper, construction, plastic and energy industries.