Water Recycling

Recycler

The main problem with current practice in Ireland is the huge waste of drinking water and the increase in volume of wastewater that must be treated in the treatment works. The solution to this problem is sewer cleaning using water recycling.

Recycler V Jet-Vac

An average “Jet Vac truck” will use the following amount of perfectly good drinking water and literally flush it down the sewer. There are 5 tanks onboard the Recycler, one tank holds Recycled water, another tank holds semi recycled water, another tank holds the debris sucked up from the sewer or drain. The other tanks hold water for the high volume suction pump and fresh water.

*(conservative figure based on time lost moving between manholes and waiting for clean water tank to fill from hydrant)

 **(Based on the 2010 Dublin City Council water rates)

So we can see that a typical sewer cleaning truck uses 23040 cubic metres of drinking water in 1 year. We estimate that there are 250 sewer-cleaning trucks similar to this operating in Ireland. This means that every year in Ireland 5,760,000 cubic metres of perfectly good drinking water is flushed into drains and sewers during the cleaning process. Given that an average household uses 262 cubic metres of water per year, the equivalent annual water use of almost 20,000 households is wasted in the process of sewer cleaning every year. 

What can it do...

•     Jetting (406 L / min) (200 metre 1 1/4” hose)
•     Suction (4000M3/hr) up to 100 metres deep
•     High Pressure Road Washing with high volume water (on front mounted washbar with in cab controlling, i.e. left to right, etc...)
•     Specialist jet for rivers and streams, uses ‘venturi’ effect. Especially good for cleaning hard to access areas under bridges.
•     Root and grease cutting, up to 1m pipes, specialist jet.
•     Pumping Stations; Specialist 360ᵒ Rotating Jet for easy and quick cleaning. 250kg winch on 2.5m boom for easy access.
•     Aeration Ditches, filtration tanks; will easily vacuum heavy solids, sludges and sands.
•     1500L of fresh clean water onboard with separate pump and reels for washing. (Reservoir tanks, wash down).
•     Total volume of 14,500L.

How it works

1. Water can be sucked up from any location, sewers, drains, rivers etc into the recycler. The water and debris that is sucked up is separated inside the Recycler truck so that the debris stays in the debris tank for disposal and the separated water is used for the purpose of sewer cleaning.
2. The jetting hose is inserted into the sewer/drain/river (via a manhole) and the Recycled water is pumped through the jetting hose and jetting nozzle at the end of the hose.
3. This process effectively power washes the inside of sewer and pulls the debris from the sewer to the manhole.
4. The truck is continuously sucking from the manhole and automatically recycling the water and waste sucked from the manhole.

Benefits

•     Environmental Savings – water conservation
  •  There is a drastic reduction in the use of drinking water, currently amounting to the annual usage of almost 20,000 households.
  •  There is no need to treat all the extra water that would have been introduced into the sewer network because the existing water in the network is simply recycled and used to clean the network.

•    Economical Savings
  •         The cost per cubic meter on the Dublin City Council website for 2010 is €1.72, when we work this into the previous figures we show that €8,854,560 worth of drinking water is wasted in the drain and sewer cleaning process every year.
  •         As the recycler removes the water from the debris and sludge that it vacuums, this in turn means that there is far less waste for landfill or WWTP’s. i.e. Instead of having to travel with a load of ‘liquid’ waste and debris on a regular basis to landfill or WWTP the recycler will have a load of dry, gritty type debris on a far less regular basis

•  Continuous water recycling system –
  • This means that you do not need to stop working in order to recycle water or to fill from a hydrant, you can clean the sewer with higher volume of water due to the fact that you are recycling and are not concerned about running out of water quickly – what this means for you is that you can increase your daily productivity by 3-4 times [thus increasing your earning potential]

•     Increased Efficiency & Production:
  •  Because the Recycler truck can work continuously it is a much more efficient option, it does not have to drive to and from a water supply every time it runs out of water because it simply recycles the water it is working with.
  • Similarly, time spent travelling to and from WWTP’s is reduced, which further increases efficiency and cost effectiveness for the client.
  • A Recycler truck will typically carry out 3 to 4 times the production per day than that of a conventional “Jet-Vac”. This has huge implications on fuel and labour cost savings.
  • Because the recycler is not limited in the amount of water it can use it can have very high volume pumps. This means that the drain, culvert or river can be cleaned far more effectively using this large volume of water.