Partner meeting and on-site visit Ringsted and Kalundborg
18 September 2023
The third meeting of WaterMan project partners was held in Kalundborg and Rungsted (Denmark) where we were implementing the next phase of the WaterMan project, the idea of which is to promote water reuse in the Baltic Sea region through capacity building at the local level.
The first day of the WaterMan project was devoted to a study visit and workshop in Kalundborg. The project partners visited the ‘Kalundborg Symbiosis’, which deals with the treatment of water used in the industry sector. It is a consortium of sixteen public and private companies, established back in the 1970s, which developed the world’s first industrial symbiosis with a circular approach to production. Industries are using cold seawater to cool the machines and don’t use good quality drinking water. The core principle of Kalundborg Symbiosis is to create partnerships locally to share and reuse resources, thus saving water. Symbiosis creates growth in the local community and supports green transformation. The water use is divided into citizens around 1 mln and industry part 4 mln. Important information from Symbiosis is that they are having talks with the industry to convince them to use different kinds of water quality if they don’t need drinking water quality.
At the site we visited, we could see the test system that was made as part of the ULTIMATE project pilot. The treatment plant produces very good quality water, which is used to cool the machinery. We were given a tour of the Kalundborg Utility Team’s facility, where experts were waiting for us, ready to provide any information related to the topic at hand.
The second day of the meeting was dedicated to pilot investments about which partners were discussing. It was a chance to make a peer-to-peer review by each partner. The idea of the peer-to-peer review was to help partners, provide substantive support and ideas on how Partners in the pilot area can collect rainwater, for example, to a greater extent and reuse it on a bigger level. We have got information about the plans and stages of the pilot in each country.
The main objective of the project is to promote water reuse. We are active in this extremely important area by educating, promoting good practices, and cooperating with cities and municipalities by activating and supporting their local activities in the water topic.