Wastewater treatment plant in Tübingen now has fourth treatment stage

On July 21, 2021, Helm­fried Meinel, Min­is­te­r­i­al Direc­tor at the Baden-Würt­tem­berg Min­istry of the Envi­ron­ment, vis­it­ed the waste­water treat­ment plant in Tübin­gen, where he inau­gu­rat­ed the con­struc­tion of the so-called fourth treat­ment stage. The fourth treat­ment stage will allow residues of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and house­hold chem­i­cals to be fil­tered out of waste­water. “The elim­i­na­tion of trace sub­stances is pre­cau­tion­ary water pro­tec­tion,” Meinel empha­sized. In Tübin­gen in par­tic­u­lar, this plays a major role, he said, because it means that few­er trace sub­stances end up in the Neckar River.

The Min­is­te­r­i­al Direc­tor explained that Tübin­gen is only the sec­ond waste­water treat­ment plant in Baden-Würt­tem­berg, after the treat­ment plant in Eriskirch, to use an ozona­tion plant with down­stream fil­tra­tion for the elim­i­na­tion of trace sub­stances. “Tübin­gen is thus one of the pio­neers for this process com­bi­na­tion in Baden-Würt­tem­berg. The big advan­tage is that it has a broad effect.” He said it is effec­tive for a wide range of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, hor­mones and numer­ous oth­er sub­stances. Even germs can be removed from wastewater.

20 wastewater treatment plants have been equipped with the fourth treatment stage so far

With a view to pre­ven­tion, Meinel explained fur­ther, the Min­istry of the Envi­ron­ment began sev­er­al years ago to sup­port the expan­sion of waste­water treat­ment plants with inno­v­a­tive process­es for the so-called fourth purifi­ca­tion stage for the elim­i­na­tion of trace sub­stances. In doing so, the state is con­cen­trat­ing on par­tic­u­lar­ly sen­si­tive bod­ies of water, as well as large waste­water treat­ment plants and pol­lu­tion hotspots.

“On this basis, 20 waste­water treat­ment plants in Baden-Würt­tem­berg are now equipped with a tar­get­ed purifi­ca­tion stage for the removal of trace sub­stances, and anoth­er 23 with this spe­cial tech­nol­o­gy are under con­struc­tion or in planning.”

- Helm­fried Meinel, Min­is­te­r­i­al Director

State contributes almost three million euros in Tübingen

The state is con­tribut­ing almost three mil­lion euros to the total eli­gi­ble costs in Tübin­gen of almost 13.8 mil­lion euros. “This is mon­ey well invest­ed,” Meinel said. In addi­tion to the city of Tübin­gen, the munic­i­pal­i­ties of Ammer­buch and Rot­ten­burg are also financ­ing the expansion.

The min­is­te­r­i­al direc­tor also praised the fact that with the com­ple­tion of the expan­sion and the com­mis­sion­ing of fil­tra­tion in Tübin­gen, phos­pho­rus elim­i­na­tion has now been raised to an even bet­ter lev­el. “Aquat­ic ani­mals and plants also ben­e­fit from this, because the eco­log­i­cal con­di­tion in the Neckar can be notice­ably and sus­tain­ably improved.”