PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Recent studies show that by 2050 there will be river basins experiencing severe water stress affecting 130M inhabitants in southern Europe. Moreover, climate change is expected to exacerbate water availability and increase irrigation withdrawals. LIFE REWAINCER is a 1.3M€ demonstration project aiming to reduce the extraction of fresh water from aquifers, by validating water regeneration technologies that allow direct use of reclaimed waters into high water demanding industrial scale processes of the ceramic sector contributing to guarantee the economic development of the region and increasing the amount of available water resources. LIFE REWAINCER consortium is composed by a multidisciplinary combination of industry and academic actors that will validate a demonstration plant that could be replicated in other sectors and regions and can generate up to 0.815M€ revenues in 5 years of replication. On the industrial side, FACSA (coordinator) holds the expertise on the construction and management of wastewater treatment plants, while SAMCA (EUROARCE) is a ceramics multinational company which will be in charge of the demonstration and validation. The Research institution ITC-AICE brings expertise and knowledge in innovative water treatment technologies, ceramic processes and environmental analysis techniques. Additionally, several entities from the regional public sector have shown interest in the project and will contribute to the Advisory Board. The project will have very relevant impact at different levels, not just during the project, but also after the project execution, thanks to the replication and exploitation actions foreseen. It is expected that LIFE REWAINCER results will promote the uptake of the proposed solutions not only by other actors in the ceramics sector but also by other water demanding industrial sectors with high water demand, as textile, and including also other EU regions and countries with wide environmental benefits.