zerO-M - Sustainable concepts towards a zero outflow municipality (http://www.zero-m.org)
Starting date: 2003-09-01 - Duration (months): 48

 
Short description:
Zer0-M aims at concepts and technologies to achieve optimised close-loop usage of all water flows in small municipalities or settlements (e.g. tourism facilities) not connected to a central wastewater treatment - the Zero Outflow Municipality (Zer0-M). Several technologies are already available, which allow efficient wastewater treatment and re-use without hygienic risks on a low-cost and easy-to-handle level. These includes sanitation systems with low water consumption, separation of grey and black water, biological treatment of grey water and re-use for non-drinking purposes (e.g. irrigation), bio-membrane reactors for intense treatment, constructed wetlands for extensive treatment, sludge hygienisation for re-use as fertiliser.
The project consortium consists of 11 partners from four Mediterranean Partner Countries (MPC) - Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey- and the EU-countries Italy, Greece, Austria and Germany and comprises a Municipality, environmental NGOs, non-profit professional organisations and research institutions. Target groups of the project are experts from administration, planning and engineers. Awareness raising measures target also schools and interested public. Zer0-M wants to enable one centre in each country to implement and disseminate SWM solutions and to promote the technologies and the approach among authorities and consumers. Main issues to be taken into consideration are:
• Function, treatment performance and maintenance requirements of existing SWM technologies
• Integrated concepts for different applications of decentralised waste water treatment and re-use
• small settlements in rural areas with agricultural production
• isolated tourism facilities
• peri-urban areas not connected to a centralised waste water collection and treatment system.
• Hygienic aspects and good practice to avoid health hazards, with special regard on re-use of wastewater and sludge for irrigation and fertilisation.
• Costs and tariffing.

Planned activities are:
• Set-up of an Internet network for experts on the above described topics; building up links to existing websites; organisation of regional and international conferences, publication of a journal. (Know-how exchange)
• Training and workshops in Training and Demonstration Centres (TDC) in four MEDA-Partner countries addressing different target groups; excursions for experts to existing SWM examples in EU countries; up-dating of relevant legislation in order to discuss SWM friendly regulations.
• Realisation of Zer0-M installations attached to four TDCs (components: water saving household and sanitary appliances, biological grey water treatment, membrane bioreactors, constructed wetlands); monitoring; pilot implementations for a site in Egypt, a Tunisian rural settlement and a development site in Morocco. (Technology transfer)
• Case studies on four small municipalities or settlements in the 4 MPCs with the elaboration of Zer0-M concepts, developing cartographic visualisation and representation tools, a software tool for modelling economic effects and a life cycle assessment of environment and health aspects of SWM components.
• A CD-ROM containing a video and information about SWM for different target groups. (Awareness raising)

Themes covered:
I. Integrated management of local drinking water supply, sanitation and sewage
V. Use of non-conventional water resources

Projects documents available for zerO-M

Up