Qatra Water Solutions, a leading company operating the strategic wastewater treatment assets in Sharjah, is set to complete work on its recycled water filling station located in the emirate's Bridi area by month-end, said a top official.
Qatra is a joint venture between Sharjah Investment and Development Authority (Shurooq) and Besix, a major player in the infrastructure concessions and construction sector.
The new facility will be instrumental in supplying local farms with reliable and affordable water and to provide reused water to a park close to the facility.
The Emirati group already operates a wastewater treatment plant that treats more than 30,000 cu m of wastewater daily coming from all over Sharjah. The treated water is mainly used in landscaping and construction sectors.
"Today, we are focusing on expanding our wastewater treatment capacity. We target to double it by 2022 in order to cope with the increased population in Sharjah," Gurvan Dersel, General Manager at Qatra Water Solutions.
"We have pushed sustainability to its maximum by transforming a wastewater plant into a bio refinery concept where anything going out can be improved and reused," said Dersel, about the company’s most important achievement since its establishment in 2019.
There is an essential research and development partnership with the University of Sharjah and the Sharjah Research Academy on how to reuse the treated water widely, he added.
According to Dersel, Qatra has also just started to operate a brand new facility that produces and delivers high-quality water for non-drinking applications, which uses the best water treatment technologies available. "It is the first of its kind in Sharjah," said the top official.
Asked about Qatra’s contribution to offer an integrated solution to solve this issue, Dersel said the company’s treatment facility is located inland, without any possibility to discharge treated water to the sea.
"This pushes us to find alternative solutions, like the storage lakes that became a haven for many birds, direct pipeline supply to key offtakers or the setup of the water recycling plant. This water is extremely valuable and an affordable and sustainable alternative to desalination water for many applications," he explained.
Dersel pointed out that wastewater treatment was a cheaper and more eco-friendly solution than desalination that consumes more power and causes pollution.
"Our recycling plant consumes four times less power compared to a similar sized desalination plant, and it obviously translates into pricing. We can accordingly propose prices 20 to 30 per cent lower than the market prices," he noted.
"The quality of water we produce is excellent, but we do not brand it as drinking water because of its source. Nonetheless, it can serve many applications, such as district cooling, steel factories, chemical or ready-mix plants. The very low content of salt makes it a premium product for all of these industries," he added.
