Sewage, refuse, cleaning and environmental services

Description

United Utilities Water Ltd (UU) produces over 200 000 dry tonnes of wastewater derived sludge per annum. Due to sludge growth and reconfiguration of our asset base we have a need for sludge treatment services ranging from sludge collection, transport and treatment in the North of our region. In the North of our region (Cumbria and Lancashire) we have circa 30 000 dry tonnes of sludge. This is derived from a range of Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW) with sludge types including: • primary sludge, • secondary sludge, • co-settled sludge (mix of primary and secondary). Currently the raw sludge is a mix of raw, thickened liquid and cake. The wastewater treatment processes vary and include biological and chemical phosphorus removal technologies. The scope of services we are interested range from sludge pre-treatment and collection, processing and management of residual solids. Therefore potential services might include: • pre-treatment of sludge from their point of origin, • collection and transportation for treatment, • treatment of sludge and management of products, by-products and residual solids. Of the above, the treatment of sludge and management of products, by-products and residual solids is the main need. We are open to opportunities where sludge can be combined with other feedstock's. We are also interested in options to provide ‘turn-key’ solutions, which include provision of finance and operating services, alongside providing upfront design and build services. Services for treatment of our sludge do not need to be co-located within our existing operations. However, we wish to highlight that our Blackburn WwTW has the potential to be a location to develop a centralised treatment plant. The site currently has an Advanced Anaerobic Digestion (AAD) facility which processes around 11 000 to 13 000 dry tonnes of sludge per annum. This has been in operation for over 20 years. We are interested in replicating the above services for other parts of our region to drive efficiency, environmental compliance and wider circular economy benefits. Following closure of the PIN we will hold a follow up webinar (via MS Teams) for interested parties.