ANCHOR - Capacity building for circular wastewater management

To make cities more sustainable, resources such as water, energy, and materials need to become more circular.

Society's waste products need to be better utilised and reused, and we need to conserve more water. Traditional wastewater management does not optimally utilise these resources. The focus is currently on recipient protection, meaning wastewater is cleaned before being discharged into nearby water bodies. This approach only allows a small portion of the resources to be recycled and reused, such as nutrients and purified water. Shifting the focus from recipient protection to resource recovery could allow for more efficient reuse and also reduce emissions to the recipient.

When wastewater is separated into different flows directly in buildings, and these streams are handled and treated separately, it facilitates the use of nutrients, heat, biogas, and purified water. The main reasons for keeping the different wastewater streams separate, from the household to the treatment facilities, include:

• More efficiently capturing resources such as energy, water, and nutrients.
• Reducing environmental and health impacts.
• Decreasing the load on pipes and treatment plants.

Over time, this approach may also reduce the need to expand drinking water production and wastewater treatment. The project ANCHOR, Anthropocene Nutrient and Water Control for Holistic Resilience and Recovery, brings together European water companies, municipalities, and academic institutions to share experiences. By evaluating technology, analyzing benefits and costs, and identifying barriers and opportunities, the project aims to create a shared knowledge base. This knowledge base will facilitate and accelerate the transition within the water and wastewater sector.

Purpose and Goals

The aim is to develop a knowledge base concerning sorting wastewater systems and water-efficient communities targeted at decision-makers in urban development. This will be achieved by evaluating pilot projects and developing tools and manuals based on the results generated within the project. The goal is to contribute to more resource efficiency in the water sector.

Results and Experiences

The project commenced in September 2023 and no results have been generated so far.

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