Water circles: the secrets revealed drivers for the circular mindset in Belgium, with examples in the industry

Since a few years, the effects of global warming are becoming more visible, also in Belgium: long heat periods in springtime or in summer (2018-2019-2020), irregular rainfall, leading to peak water demand. At the same time, the aquifers are not restored in wintertime; the surface waters are less reliable as a raw water resource. Belgium will be one of the more water-stressed countries in 2040. The mission of the water company “De Watergroep” reflects the willingness to solve the water stress issue in the future. The problem is complex, but the solutions are multiple: instead of making tap water from surface water of groundwater, alternative sources for making tap water are used as well, such as rainwater or low-quality water like brackish river water or effluent from a wastewater plant. This kind of solution can be realised even in the short term, and the beneficial environmental effect is part of the global aim to reduce the CO₂ footprint. Today, industrial customers are not just looking for tap water for processing purposes; they expect public water companies to deliver a full-blown water service starting from an optimisation plan and a business case. Together with the client, the water company looks for other water sources to reduce costs, lower the CO2 footprint to avoid wastewater taxes and meet today’s socio-economic expectations in general.  To cover the industry’s water needs sustainably, De Watergroep offers several formats, but in most cases, the DBFO. The industry wants to eliminate the complex water processing themselves, leaving water specialists to focus on their own production processes. The next step is the field tests on a pilot scale to try out several treatment techniques and optimise them, for example, upgrading the effluent from a wastewater plant up to tap water or up to demineralised water for steam production and other uses. After that, the “water plant” is upscaled to “the real thing”. De Watergroep knows perfectly how to meet the needs of several sectors like the chemical industry, the potato industry, the milk industry, and even the micro-chips industry that uses massive volumes of 100% purified water. State of the art techniques are used, some of them being “not yet so common”: The plus value offered to the client is the specific water knowledge: everybody knows several techniques to clean or upgrade water to a certain quality, but dimensioning, tuning, running and managing these techniques, putting them together in the most efficient way, requests specialists’ work. Partnership from both industry and the public water company De Watergroep leads to innovative, holistic water solutions in Flanders today, saving water for future generations.