Yorkshire Water sewage treatment plant at Malton, UK
Click here to enlarge imageJE Hartley Site Manager John Pick explained: “The overall results of the trial are very encouraging. It’s obvious the two-stage glass filter system produced a far higher quality effluent than that which our own onsite sand-based system can manage. There’s now every chance we’ll upgrade our current process to include recycled glass. We’re always trying to improve our impact on the environment and see RGFM as a plus, because it will help us contribute further to sustainability.”
Suspended solid removal during the trial at Croda Chemicals Europe reached 90 per cent, and was consistently at 45 to 55 per cent, with the COD figure reaching a high of more than 70 per cent.
Tim Uppard, process engineer at Croda, explained: “The trial has shown that using the two-stage glass system enables us to cope with very high levels of solids - the average before the test was 250 mg/l - without any costly pre-filtration process being necessary or the filters becoming fouled. In contrast, a sand filter would only be able to cope with 100 mg/l at most, so if we bought one, we’d also have to spend between £100,000 and £150,000 on a chemical pre-treatment process to reduce concentrations before filtration, and then pay the ongoing costs of operating it.”
The Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP), a government-funded, not-for-profit company, funded the JE Hartley and Croda trials. WRAP was established to improve recycling performance and promote resource efficiency in the UK.
Author’s Note
Andy Dawe, the materials section manager (glass) for WRAP, is located in Banbury, UK.