Wastewater treatment

Water & Resource Recovery Plant (VARGA)

Who

BIOFOS, Envidan, ARC, UNISENSE and DTU Environment

What

VARGA (Water & Resource Recovery Plant)

Where

Avedøre

The VARGA development project

Together with BIOFOS and other partners, Envidan has been granted just over DKK 19 million for a lighthouse project called VARGA. The funding comes from the Ministry of Environment under the MUDP program. The project aims to ensure that wastewater and waste resources are used even better than they are today, for the benefit of the city’s citizens.

The main purpose of the project is to transform a traditional wastewater treatment plant into a Water & Resource Recovery Plant, hence the name VARGA. The project develops key elements of the circular economy, focusing on achieving carbon neutrality and using the nutrients in urban waste and wastewater for the production of organic food. The project thus seeks to create synergies through cooperation on resource use across the water, waste and organic farming sectors.

The road to the treatment plant of the future

The project chalks up the forward-looking objective of the treatment plant of the future. Instead of a conventional wastewater treatment plant, it needs to be reimagined as a resource plant that both treats wastewater and makes full use of resources. This will be demonstrated at one of Denmark’s largest wastewater treatment plants Avedøre (capacity of about 400,000 PE) which will be a case for demonstration of Danish environmental technology in an international context.

Multidisciplinary action

BIOFOS, Envidan, ARC, UNISENSE and DTU Environment are the partners who together will identify new methods for achieving CO2 neutrality and resource utilization in VARGA.

This is far from the first time that Envidan has worked together with BIOFOS, and in parallel with VARGA, Envidan is working with BIOFOS on an expansion strategy 2025 for all three treatment plants in BIOFOS as well as on the expansion of the digester capacity, new sludge storage and rebuilding of sand traps at the Lynetten treatment plant.

”We need to turn the whole mindset around so that in the future we think of a wastewater treatment plant as a resource plant. The project provides a unique opportunity for Denmark to be a pioneering country where we both purify water and utilize the resources in wastewater”

“We see great export perspectives in the VARGA lighthouse project in our consulting services such as CO2-neutral treatment, circular economy, biogas upgrading, advanced online management and deliveries of Salsnes filters for optimizing carbon harvesting and concentrating primary sludge”

Innovation is one of our key priorities at Envidan

That’s why we spend 20% of our profits on research and development every year.

Want to read more about Envidan’s development projects and the new research we provide in the water sector?

Contact me
for more information

Jeanette Agertved Madsen

Udviklingschef

+45 42 12 54 78

jam@envidan.dk

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