The sewer mining facility (SMF) at the municipal plant nursery of Athens, Greece, treats wastewater with a membrane bioreactor unit and a UV disinfection unit. The SMF produces high-quality reclaimed water for irrigation and aquifer recharge during the winter. The SMF setup demonstrates flexibility, scalability, and replicability, essential for innovation uptake within the emerging circular economy and market. But due to the tight coupling of the SMF operations and its system components and the used low-level data representations, the SMF is a disconnected information silo that lacks the ability for knowledge sharing and gaining relevant insights

The SMF uses a Unitronics PLC to provide its components’ real-time status. The PLC produces status information that follows Unitronic’s specifications and is stored directly in the PLC. We established real time data transfers from the inherently disconnected PLC to our project database

Athens Platn Nursery

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The Athens Urban Tree Nursery comprises 4 hectares of vegetation, supplies all urban parks and green spaces of Athens with plant material, and uses potable water from Athens’s Water Supply and Sewerage Company (EYDAP) for its irrigation. The city is seeking alternative water sources leveraging circular economy solutions to achieve environmental, social, and financial benefits for the city.

The installation of a sewer mining modular unit for urban green irrigation at the point of demand brought direct benefits for the sustainability of the new metropolitan park. Additionally, compost-based eco-engineered growing media products are reused as an onsite fertilizer, as part of a portfolio of autonomous, decentralized water, energy, and materials circular solutions for cities in water-scarce areas. Finally, thermal energy recovery schemes were investigated to minimize the pilot’s environmental footprint.