Italian City Upgrades Wastewater Treatment Plant

Loano, Italy, is better known for its pristine beaches and as a seasonal tourist hub found on the Mediterranean coast, but this has led to an increased focus on wastewater treatment. Servizi Ambientali have seen the need to increase their existing wastewater treatment plant to include GE's (USA) advanced membrane bioreactor (MBR) technology. This has made it the second largest municipal MBR plant in all of Italy.

The area is around 60km west of Genoa in the province of Savona. This particular membrane plant was built three years ago aimed at treating 7 million litres of wastewater per day. However with the new GE ZeeWeed technology, the capacity of the plant has quadrupled to help serve 140,000 residents. The maximum wastewater flow that can be handled at the plant is 35,000 m3/d, about the amount of water needed to fill 14 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

“Our wastewater treatment plant went from simple primary treatment to advanced biological processes with membranes allowing us to reach high-level effluent quality. It is located on the seacoast and discharges into a sensitive ecosystem in a tourist region,” said Giovanni Paganelli, chief executive officer, Servizi Ambientali SPA. “Our newly upgraded plant now results in the best effluent water quality ever achieved, enabling us to serve a larger population and at the same time, diverting the cleaned wastewater for non-potable reuse.”

GE’s ZeeWeed 500 technology includes filtration technology that helps separate particles, bacteria and viruses from water and wastewater. This technology has been included in 1,000 plants worldwide to help meet wastewater treatment standards and create excellent quality drinking water.

“Governments and municipalities continue to look for ways to properly treat wastewater and possibly reuse it for non-potable purposes, particularly in highly tourist regions such as Loano and Liguria. Discharging effluents with high quality characteristics obtained through ultrafiltration technologies, such as GE’s ZeeWeed, is essential to preserve the environment,” said Jeff Connelly, vice president, engineered systems—water and process technologies for GE Power & Water.