Robert Körner, Head of Marketing & Strategic Sales, WEHRLE-WERK AGRobert Körner, Head of Marketing & Strategic Sales
The recent initiatives from the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) to close dumpsites, reduce marine litter and avoid plastic waste and greenhouse gases is a prime indication of the changing waste management landscape. One thing often overseen during the efforts of transporting, treating, and storing ordinary domestic waste is the effluent stemming from this waste, commonly known as leachate. It is emitted from modern waste digestion plants or from classic landfills and is highly polluting and dangerous to public health. It, therefore, needs to be treated, in landfills even for 30 or more years after the closing of the landfill, i.e. after the period in which a landfill still has income. But treating leachate is no easy task; even sewage treatment plants typically don’t want it.

Effective leachate treatment requires deep and practical expert knowledge. Many plant constructors try to apply conventional process technologies for leachate treatment, resulting in high consumption of energy, chemicals, and manpower in the best case.

With over 30 years of experience with leachate treatment, WEHRLE-WERK AG can help address this quandary. The company’s experience spans around over 300 treatment plants in all climate zones worldwide, leachate types, and individual site conditions. “Our oldest plants are still in operation, proving the long-term suitability of our technology and permanently low operation costs in all phases of the landfill life cycle. Our technology eliminates the pollutants, not only separates them from the leachate,” says Robert Körner, the Head of Marketing & Strategic Sales Management of WEHRLE. The company consults, designs, and constructs individual solutions for landfills, considering surrounding conditions and future developments. Further, it also operates leachate treatment plants or at least supports the local operation team. “We can help, together with the client, to find the right solution for the best suited technology and the corresponding services – and WEHRLE has a reputation of getting the job done,” mentions Mr. Körner.

WEHRLE offers a wide range of leachate treatment solutions from an entry-level containerized packaged plant membrane technology to Heavy Duty Membrane Bioreactors (MBR) up to High-End hybrid solutions. This combines the MBR with polishing process technologies to achieve a high effluent quality without critical concentrates. Digital process control and plant automation simplify plant operation and reduce the risk of making mistakes.
“If required, we offer quick and competent remote or on-site support as well as attractive service products like Efficiency Operation Analysis (EOA) that puts a focus on reducing specific treatment costs,” says Mr. Körner. WEHRLE’s aim is to guide clients throughout the whole plant life cycle and make sure that leachate does not become a problem.

Being a globally operating environmental technology company, WEHRLE has built plants in over 45 countries. “We are the undisputable no. 1 supplier in this difficult application, with most references that are in operation still 10 or more years after start-up,” says Mr. Körner. The company has its international team in Germany and maintains subsidiaries in Spain, the UK, Russia and Malaysia and cooperates with many international partners, that work in their respective language zones and assure short communication paths.

We can help, together with the client, to find the right solution for the best suited technology and the corresponding services – and WEHRLE has a reputation of getting the job done

Outside WEHRLE, they network with other companies supplying solutions for waste management. “With this, we can support our clients even beyond our own area of expertise, for instance if waste compaction, landfill gas handling or expert consulting is required” adds Mr. Körner.

A typical example for a WEHRLE project was a landfill in Poland that had bought an apparently well-established leachate treatment technology that separated the pollutants from the leachate. The concentrated pollutants were re-circulated to the landfill, resulting in an increase of pollutants in the leachate. Within only a year, the treatment plant performance dropped by a Third, and operation costs went up by 40 percent. That was when the landfill operator approached WEHRLE. The company helped the client to upgrade their separation technology (which had to remain in their books as it had not depreciated) with a true elimination step, increasing the yield to even 20 percent higher than its original output while dropping the operation costs accordingly.

With a growing need for leachate treatment globally, WEHRLE seems poised to help many such companies in the future. The company is now also reviving and upgrading its traditional boiler and incineration technology to build small turn-key Waste-to-Energy plants that utilize waste to generate electricity and heat for district heating networks on a regional level. “Our incineration technology is ideally suited for thermal utilization of domestic waste from cities or production waste in industrial zones. Thus, WEHRLE also supports the energy transition to use ‘renewable’ waste instead of fossil fuels for energy generation,” concludes Mr. Körner.