Wednesday, 22nd November 2023
Calvià opens the door to hoteliers to use regenerated water that can save up to 10 million litres of drinking water per day
After the success of the pilot project with Mardavall, Calvià 2000 seeks new public-private collaborations
Up to 10 million litres of drinking water could be saved per day in Calvià. It is the ambitious objective set by the public company Calvià 2000. The ERA (Wastewater Treatment Plant) in Santa Ponça has the capacity to produce more than 20.000 cubic metres of regenerated water, of which 10.000 (quality 1.1) would be suitable for irrigation of private gardens, parks, street cleaning, toilet cisterns and sports fields, and the rest (quality 2.1) for golf courses and agricultural irrigation. This implies a capacity to regenerate the wastewater produced every day by a population of 118.000 inhabitants. All use of reclaimed water translates into savings in drinking water from the ordinary network.
With this "strategic objective", visits to the EDAR have begun to publicise the availability of regenerated water and promote its commercialisation as an alternative to drinking water. The manager of Calvià 2000, Andrés Barceló, has shown the facilities to a group of hoteliers from the Palmanova-Magaluf Association, the president of the Paguera-Cala Fornells Hoteliers Association, the captain of Puerto Portals and members of the Blanes family of s'Hostalet Group. Barceló explained that «in Calvià we are pioneers in the use of regenerated water and this is an issue in which the private sector can enter. In the end, it is an economic and environmental interest. "We all win, the environment wins and the citizen wins."
Until a few months ago, the use of regenerated water was limited to irrigation of municipal green areas. In July this year, the pilot plan was launched through an agreement with the Mardavall hotel complex for the irrigation of the establishment's green areas, which represents a saving of drinking water of more than 16 million litres annually. Thanks to the success of the initiative, a path of public-private collaboration is opened. Calvià 2000 is working on the implementation of a reclaimed water distribution service for the irrigation of private gardens, prioritising hotel establishments and large consumers located in areas where there is a distribution network. This network continues to expand, currently with expansion works in Cas Saboners.
The director of the Calvià 2000 Water Cycle, Xavier Pérez, has explained the advantages of using regenerated water over desalinated water: «not using regenerated water is not taking advantage of the available resources. Desalination is a more expensive process and environmentally it also consumes more energy. "The production cost of the desalinated cubic metre is much higher than the regenerated one."
