To reduce demand for freshwater in the arid province of Qom, an industrial wastewater treatment plant was launched by West Asia Steel Company, the managing director of the firm said.
“The facility has a daily reclamation capacity of 400,000 liters of industrial effluent and cost $3 million,” Gholamreza Khaliqi was quoted as saying by IRNA on Sunday.
The project is expected to help preserve at least 150 million liters of underground water a year, he added.
According to the official, developing wastewater infrastructure can help ensure that the company’s need for long-term water supplies is addressed properly.
Water-intensive industries are almost wiping out the limited water resources in the desert provinces of Qom, Yazd and Isfahan, and the need to recycle and reuse wastewater has become a do or die issue.
“One effective approach is to stop using the dwindling underground water tables and build as many wastewater treatment plants as possible to recycle not only industrial but also household sewage," Khaliqi said.
According to experts like Parviz Kardovani, a veteran eremologist and faculty member of Tehran University, Iran is fast approaching a full-fledged water crisis and if sustainable solutions are not found, “water-intensive industries and the agriculture sector will become a thing of the past sooner rather than later”.
The approach of “develop industries, come what may” will inflict substantial losses, he has warned.
“These industries should have been built in the coastal regions where there is sufficient access to seawater. Now that it is impossible to relocate, they must develop wastewater infrastructure,” Kardovani said.
The no-nonsense conservationist has for years called for rewriting macro industrial policies, namely water-intensive industries like steel manufacturing, but the plea has fallen on deaf ears.
Constructed on a 40-hectare plot in 2010, West Asia Steel Company is specialized in manufacturing direct-reduced iron, also called sponge iron, which is widely used in car and home appliance industries.
