Northern Care
Northern Care is a Waste to Resource company. Our focus is to turn sewage sludge ash into resources that can be used in the agricultural and construction sector.
Introduction
Northern Care is a Waste to Resource company. Our focus is to turn sewage sludge ash into resources that can be used in the agricultural and construction sector. Our ash plant will be located in the center of several mono-incineration plants making it possible for the plants to dispose of their sewage sludge ash. Northern Care owns and operates the sewage sludge ash plants selling the resources.
Problem
The wastewater we humans produce is treated by wastewater treatment plants. Those Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are in their treatment process producing sewage sludge (SS). There are mainly two possibilities to deal with SS – either incineration and landfill of the produced sewage sludge ash (SSA) or direct agricultural application. Because of the considerable contents of heavy metals, antibiotics and other pollutants in the sludge, it is the declared aim of the Federal State of Germany to reduce the amount of SS applied on the field. Currently, already 2/3 of the SS produced in Germany is treated by incineration. But, more plants are in construction.
By 2029 and 2032 (WWTPs) treating wastewater for more than 100 000 and 50 000 people, respectively will be forced by legislation to recover Phosphorous from their wastewater. Affected WWTPs have to develop a concept on how to meet these new requirements by 2023. Thus action is needed now! A considerable amount of middle-sized treatment plants are just in the process of building up their own mono-incineration facilities, which are fostered by the current legislation. However, these plants require large investment costs. Hence, they are already under economic pressure and looking for an easy-to-implement recovery method of phosphorous from sewage sludge ash.
Our solution
Northern Care steps in at exactly this point. We will build up phosphorous recovery plants in strategic positions between several WWTPs to treat as much SSA in our plant as possible. Our calculations show that this is the key to make our business flourish. But we want to exceed the goal of only recovering phosphorous. We want to do our bit to making economy circular. Therefore, our plant will also recover silica sand for the building industry and ion as well as aluminium chlorides, which are needed in the wastewater treatment process of WWTPs.
SWOT analysis
Value proposition
The value proposition of Northern Care includes two types of customers. On the one hand, there are the WWTPs, which have the pain of having to dispose of their SSA while recovering phosphorous by 2029/2032. Furthermore, they have the pain of small financial resources as they just had huge investment costs into mono-incineration facilities. On top of that, they need a quick solution for their problem, as a phosphorous recovery plan needs to be ready by 2023. Our business addresses all these issues and relieves those pains, as we provide a quick and easy solution for the WWTPs, which does not require any investment by the WWTPs only a regular fee for disposal and recovery of SSA. On the other hand, there are the customers buying the resources recovered by Northern Care. These need reasonable prices, high-quality products, but also have to follow the general push for more sustainability. Northern Care’s products are recycled products from wastewater sold at a competitive market price and meet therefore the demands of these customers.
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