Irish Water has announced the signing of a contract for the first facility in Ireland to recover phosphorous from wastewater, as part of the Ringsend Wastewater Treatment Plant Upgrade Project.
The upgrade of the Ringsend Wastewater Treatment Plant is essential in order to enable future housing and commercial development and help to ensure that Dublin is able to sustain continued growth in the medium term. The project will deliver, on a phased basis, the capacity to sustainably treat the wastewater for a population equivalent of 2.4 million while achieving the standards of the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive.
The signing of this contract marks an important milestone in this ongoing Upgrade Project. Phosphorous is a valuable finite resource and this facility will enable it to be recovered and processed for use as a fertilizer in agriculture. The provision of a phosphorus recovery process is a key element of the project strategy to achieve compliance with the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive.
The Ringsend Wastewater Treatment Plant, which treats approximately 40% of Ireland’s public wastewater, is currently overloaded and is not in compliance with the EU’s Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive.
