Wireline Magazine Autumn 2020 Issue 49

Right: RGS Nordic Director of Water Solutions Jonathan Cope.

Left: RGS Nordic's site at Stigsnæs, south west of Copenhagen.

Reduce, reuse, recycle While the fundamental processes for water treatment at Stigsnæs are typical, it is the combination of recycling elements that support RGS’ environmental credentials. “We’re able to utilise waste fractions in a different manner than many UK facilities are able to do,” Cope notes. For example, excess sludge from the treatment process is recovered for use in Denmark’s district heating system, while recaptured hydrocarbons can be re-refined and turned back into useful products. Moreover, other waste products are also recovered to regulate treatments - used caustic soda for example, helps regulate ph levels – all which supports a more circular approach to waste management. “It’s very much tuned to minimising the use of virgin resources and using as much as we can from industry to facilitate the treatment process,” he says. Using this holistic approach, energy and material recovery is vastly improved compared with remediation alone. In terms of its offering to clients, scale is important. Owing to its portside location, Stigsnæs can accommodate large vessels and up to 100,000 tonnes of water in one delivery, with flexible storage for up to 140,000 tonnes prior to processing. Coupled with around 600,000 tonnes per year of plant throughput, Cope is confident the site is flexible enough to handle varied demand from across the basin. Traceability is key too. As more companies look to record, report and improve on their environmental performance, understanding the inputs and outputs of their assets is increasingly useful. Danish regulations mean RGS operates on a “kilo-in, kilo-out” basis – everything is recorded and accounted for throughout its process and Cope sees this as a major differentiator: “We can give operators a full appraisal of what was in

[their water] and we’re able to document what comes out the other end and what was removed, so you get full traceability. That gives them security… and that’s a big thing for us being able to say where this waste goes.” Altogether, this can help drive significant reductions in overall carbon emissions. Cope draws particular attention to the benefits of single-shipment deliveries (as opposed to trucking material to various facilities onshore), which coupled with the treatment and re-use of recovered materials can have a measurable impact. “All in all, it gives the most cost-effective and sustainable solution, and that’s what we are taking as a value proposition to the market,” he explains. Export market A flexible, basin-wide approach to water management will be of growing importance in the coming years. With new EU Best Available Technique Reference documents (BREFs) set to come into force in 2022, operations across the bloc will evolve, and RGS hopes to be at the forefront. “The EU are working on increasing trans- frontier shipment [TFS] abilities because waste is more now being seen as a resource,” he adds. “They want to be able to send usable resources to the right facilities than can use it. It doesn’t have to be everyone doing everything locally, we have a European infrastructure that we can draw on.” Most notably, Cope says the group is currently seeking export approvals from the UK Environment Agency (EA) and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) to export waste water and other materials more freely from UK operations to sites like Stigsnæs for treatment. These permissions, also known as TFS approvals, can only be approved if there is a recycling component, which RGS is confident the facility can meet, given its

w ire lin e | A u t u m n 2 02 0 | 2 9

Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker