Why Europe Lags in Water Reuse
Unlike the U.S., Europe lacks large-scale potable water reuse due to limited leadership, cultural hesitation, and regulatory barriers. Despite technical capability and water needs, progress depends on proactive regional initiatives setting new standards.
In many regions of the world, I see large scale indirect or even direct potable water reuse projects popping up. Except in Europe. My big hypothesis is that it is not a lack of reuse needs, nor a lack of technical solutions.I think the number one cause is a lack of leadership. In Europe, you are not allowed to talk about 'potable reuse'.Initiatives will likely have to start bottom up, just like anywhere else. So, I am waiting for the leading country, region, or utility to emerge and set the standard. I hope to get some input from people that are with their feet in the field or with their hands on the data.
Large-scale potable reuse initiatives of today
I seriously started thinking about this question ('why not Europe?') when our company started working on one of world’s largest indirect potable reuse (IPR) projects in the US: SWIFT (The Sustainable Water Initiative for Tomorrow -swiftva.com) (Virginia, US). The water stress in Eastern Virginia was not as severe as in Southern California. But still they decided to go build this 100 MGD reuse capacity in a matter of one decade, with a 1 MGD demonstration facility…
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