A partnership agreement has just been signed between the government of Egypt and the American company Ecolab. The water treatment and purification solutions provider will recycle domestic wastewater for irrigation through the construction of new treatment plants.
Egypt wants to improve its performance in wastewater recycling. This is the reason for the agreement with Ecolab. The American provider of water, hygiene and infection control solutions and services will accompany the Egyptian government in the framework of the National Water Supply Project, which aims to mitigate the effects of water stress in the country of the pharaohs.
Ecolab will build 23 new domestic wastewater treatment plants over five years. The water from these plants will be used for irrigation. In Egypt, agriculture consumes between 70 and 80% of water resources.
Production of 7 billion m3 of water per day
The future installations will bring the number of treatment plants Ecolab has set up in Egypt to 25. “We already treat wastewater in Sharm El-Sheikh and Aswan through plants with capacities of 70,000 m3 and 60,000 m3 per day respectively,” says Vishal Sharma, Ecolab’s senior vice president for India, Middle East and Africa. Ecolab uses various effluent treatment solutions such as aerobic and biological treatment.
The aerobic treatment solution uses bacteria that require oxygen to remove biological nutrients and organic pollutants in the wastewater and produce water and carbon dioxide (CO2). Biological treatment removes biodegradable contaminants from a wide range of waste streams and can generate usable renewable energy that reduces plant consumption.
By 2027, the 25 treatment plants will provide nearly 7 billion cubic meters of water per day to farmers in Egypt, saving enough fresh water to meet the drinking water needs of 20 million Egyptians per year.