In the wake of EU directives to meet EU wastewater standards, the construction of the Waste Water Treatment Plant Czajka in Warsaw is considered to be one of the most important environmental protection measures in Europe.
WWTP Czajka, the largest wastewater treatment plant in Poland, was established in 2011 in the north-east of the capital of Warsaw and has since substantially improved the water quality of the river Vistula, and consequently that of the Baltic Sea.
Designed for a population of around 2.1 Mio PE, the extension and modernisation of this plant has helped to more than double its former 200,000 m³/day inflow treatment capacity to routinely deal with a daily inflow of 450,000 m³, rising to a potential inflow of 515,000 m³/day at peak times.
WTE Wassertechnik GmbH, Veolia Water (France) and Warbud SA, a Polish construction group, formed the consortium. Beside the planning and equipping of the mechanical step, as well as the pre-treatment, WTE’s particular responsibility lay with the treatment of the sludge.
After after a construction period of three years, WWTP Czajka was successfully completed at the end of 2011. The project was implemented in two stages, so that a continuously on-going operation was guaranteed even during construction work.
At WWTP Czajka 192 tons of sewage sludge is produced daily. The sludge treatment takes place in
4 newly constructed, as well as 6 reconstructed digesters. The biogas generated is cleaned and desulphurised and then stored in biogas storage tanks. The biogas is directly used for power and heat generation. The fermented and sterilized sludge is loaded into an intermediate storage container, after which it is mechanically dewatered before it is finally transported to the newly constructed sludge incineration plant.
WTE Wassertechnik GmbH was directly responsible for the design and equipment of the influent pumping station, screen house, grit trap, primary sedimentation tanks, sludge thickening, sludge digestion and sludge dewatering.