Munich. The situation is serious. The UN speaks of a "world water crisis" since the number of people with access to clean drinking water is steadily decreasing. "Particularly the industrial countries are requested to spare the precious water where ever possible", says Dr.-Ing. E. h. Fritz Brickwedde, Secretary-General of the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt DBU. "Up to now in 14 years of promotional activities the DBU has promoted 730 projects amounting to 136.6 million euros which are aimed at protecting the resource water." From 25 - 29 April, the DBU presents ten examples from the field of sewage purification and water cycle management at the world's biggest environmental fair IFAT in Munich. At the DBU stand in hall B2 (stand N° 216), the foundation's project partners introduce technological innovations ranging from a sewage-free paper mill to a procedure for the sewage sludge reduction.

A Paper Mill without Sewage

The company Julius Schulte Söhne from Düsseldorf developed a procedure aimed at the purification and recycling of industrial sewage. For more than one year paper has been produced out of recycled paper without any sewage. Thus the paper mill annually avoids approximately 250,000 cubic meters of sewage.

Photocatalytic Processing of Sewage

The prosys GmbH from Bremen introduces the photocatalytic processing of sewage. The special quality: the catalyst can be re-used. Compared with conventional procedures for pollutant cleaning of ground water and sewage, the photo catalysis spares resources and is economically attractive.

Diminution of Sewage Sludge

To this year's IFAT innovations belongs also a procedure on the diminution of sewage sludge from the company Bioserve GmbH from Mainz. Using particular tensides, the Bioserve procedure is successful to accelerate micro-biological reduction processes of sewage plants considerably. Also the Clausthal Umwelttechnik Institut CUTEC, the Institut für Umweltanalytik und Technologie GmbH(UWAT-Institut, Ebersbach), the Deutscher Alpenverein e. V., München, the Güthler Ingenieurteam Waldshut-Tiengen), the LIWATECH Forschungsgemeinschaft (Bad König/Hessen), the Dr. Lorenzen Physiker Büro Berlin as well as the development office of Dr. - Ing. Gudernatsch (EBG, Stuttgart) present their developments.

Additional Topics

Additional topic at the IFAT is on 26 April the foundation's promotional initiative "Mountain huts and inns", which is presented together with representatives of the Deutscher Alpenverein and the Naturfreunde Deutschlands. The "Scholarship Day for Water & Sewage" on 27 April is organised by four DBU scholarship holders thus communicating their research results. Last but not least, the DBU exhibitor forum as part of the IFAT forum on 28 April in hall B2 rounds the acitivities off: four DBU project partners inform about their innovations.

Contact for further information: Franz-Peter Heidenreich, Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt DBU, Phone ++49 54196 33 230, E-mail: fp.heidenreich@dbu.de or, at the IFAT: Ulf Jacob, Zentrum für Umweltkommunikation der DBU, Phone (0170)18 37 413.