Elmo Leather starts new treatment plant
County governor Göte Bernhardsson inaugurated a new treatment plant at Elmo Leather’s plant in
This is said to be the first time that this treatment technology has been used for wastewater in the tanning industry. The total cost of the project is around SEK50 million (€5.45 million), of which around SEK8.25 million (€900,000) was contributed by the EU´s LIFE environmental fund.
The new technology used by Elmo is based on a process called nitrification/denitrification, which is an advanced form of biological treatment. The technology is used by municipal treatment plants, but has never before been used in the tanning industry because it was considered that the properties in tanning industry wastewater were technically unsuitable.
The new technique means that pollutants are broken down by micro-organisms in the water through a series of processes in which the wastewater is treated in separated, but linked, tanks.
Oxygen is added to the wastewater initially, which increases the number of micro-organisms. In the next stage, the oxygen is cut off and the micro-organisms are forced to eat the pollutants in order to survive.
The outcome is that nitrogen emissions are reduced by 80% as most of the nitrogen-containing pollutants are converted into nitrogen gas, which is the same gas that dominates the atmosphere. Traditional wastewater treatment in the Tanning industry cuts nitrogen emissions by around 30%.
