In Europe there are significant water concerns which are still non addressed. Directive 91/271/CEE, related to the treatment of urban wastewater, establishes criteria and deadlines for the purification of wastewater in all EU Member States, while the Directive 2000/60/CEE (Water Framework Directive) establishes a community framework of action for water policy aspects, which had to be achieved before the end of 2015. Both Directives state the need for an appropriate spill treatment with the purpose of maintaining a good ecological status of water resources. Although 91.4% of EU settlements have less than 2000 inhabitants, making up to 20% of the total population of the EU, a large proportion of these communities still fall short of the standards that were stipulated in these measures in terms of wastewater purification and sanitation.
The percentage of the EU population connected to central water supply systems ranges from 55.6% to 99.3%, depending on the country, whereas the percentage of the population connected with waste water treatment plants (WWTPs) varies from 40% to 90%. Data from individual countries show that EU countries have established target ranges from 75–90% of their populations to become connected to sewerage and treatment systems. Despite the fact that EU Water Framework Directive (EU WFD) obliges all countries to achieve the “good status of all the waters” in their territories, there is a gap of 10–15 % of the population, corresponding to about 20 million rural inhabitants, who will remain without proper sanitation systems after 2015. Worldwide and despite the efforts being made, many countries have still not reached the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) with regards to water. Currently, more than one billion people across the globe do not have access to clean water, while 2.6 billion people do not have access to adequate sanitation.
In order to be able to offer a solution that is of practical benefit to rural areas both in the developed world and developing countries, and regions that face serious economic constraints, it is necessary to guarantee the elimination and adequate treatment of wastewater with minimum implementation costs and affordable service costs and also taking into account social acceptance. Decentralised, small-scale systems and non-conventional purification technologies such as those developed in INNOQUA offer a concrete solution to the problem that these communities are facing. The solution proposed is simple, easy to manage, cost effective and combine natural purification processes.
INNOQUA accelerates the path to market of a modular set of innovative and scalable fully ecological sanitation solutions that address wide market needs in rural communities, for agricultural industries, for sustainable home-builders or collective housing owners and for developing countries worldwide. The near zero CO2 life-cycle emissions system is based on the purification capacity of biological organisms bringing ecological, safe and affordable sanitation capacity where it is needed most while fully addressing the thematic and cross cutting priorities of the EIP on Water.
