Huge opportunity in China for Newbury firm

Waste water treatment company signs contract

NEWBURY-based LAT Water Limited signed a contract with Jiangsu WELLE Environment Co Ltd, China, on August 20 to establish a showcase facility in Shenyang for its innovative industrial waste water technology.

WELLE is the leading Chinese player in the treatment of leachate.

LAT Water now hopes to exploit the huge opportunities available in the Chinese market.

The Oxford Road company has forged a link with WELLE to create a platform for future development in the leachate market in China by being able to demonstrate reduced energy consumption and carbon emissions, with cost savings of 40 per cent compared to traditional processes.

China Water Risk, a non-profit initiative, reports: Landfill leachate, or ‘black water’, which is created when rain or ground water percolates through the mass of mixed municipal and industrial waste in landfills, has come under new China EPA water discharge standards.

“The country has implemented new rules for discharge and is funding the effort to modernise the methods and systems for handling this effluent.

“Authorities, agencies and industry stakeholders in China and other countries are actively looking for alternative solutions to the treatment of this effluent, which is one of the most highly-contaminated and highly-complex byproducts of industrial operations.”

This initiative runs alongside the Shanghai-UK Industrial Challenge Programme, a UK Government-funded project in which LAT Water is working with the Shanghai Denovo Environmental Protection Technology Company to provide a solution to industrial waste water from a pharmaceutical facility.

LAT Water chairman Peter Champness said: “This is the first of what we expect will be many major projects in China.

“The WELLE-backed showcase, together with the Denovo Shanghai project, are catalysts for growth and part of LAT Water’s ongoing international business development strategy.”