Project Coordinator: ECOFILAE

Country: France

Project Partner: Montpellier Engineering

Country: France

Industrial ecosystem: Agrifood

Summary:

Water reuse is scarcely implemented in rural remote areas and in small WWTP as it is difficult to build cost-effective and reliable solutions. Nevertheless, the potential for water reuse in rural areas is important: in France, 85% of the WWTP are below 10 000 PE, thus representing 30% of the total volume of treated water, and they are often located directly in the vicinity of irrigated agricultural areas. 

A combination of reclamation technologies (filtration and electro-oxydation) has already been validated at the pilot level to reach the standards for vegetable irrigation (EU Class A), to be robust and adapted to rural conditions (low maintenance), and cost-effective.

REMJA plans to implement for the first time at full-scale on a demonstration site in Saint Jean de Cornies (Herault, France) a reclamation solution to supply irrigation water to one farmer and to the communal vegetable gardens.

Beyond farmers and citizens, the environment (conventional water resources) will also benefit from the project, as REMJA enables saving potable and Rhône water with increasing water deficit in the local context and more generally in the Mediterranean area.

Based on this demonstration site Ecofilae and Montpellier Engineering will co-develop and market a turnkey packaged solution (technology + services) for water reuse in agriculture in small WWTP in rural areas.