GIDA purification plant: PPP providing high-quality water for the textile industry while limiting water consumption

GIDA
Type of organisation or company
Country
Italy
City
Prato
Language for original content
Key Area
Project elaborated in partnership
Yes
Scope
Submitted by
Letizia Benigni - project officer Municipality of Prato
Start/End date
Ongoing
Yes
Type of funding
Description

The Italian city of Prato is known for its centuries-old textile tradition. The fashion industry is the second most polluting in the world. It requires around 93 billion cubic metres of water a year.

In this sense, Prato with its Bisenzio river, its intricate system of canals and its underground water supply, has managed to provide the necessary quantities, or at least it did so until the 1970s. This is the moment when the GIDA plant specialising in waste water purification was born in Prato.

GIDA was created as a public-private partnership between the Municipality of Prato and the Regional Industrial Confederation, where the majority of the shares of GIDA are today publicly owned. Through its 5 different plants, GIDA manages all the wastewater from both industry and the public. This amounts to up to 50 million cubic metres of liquid a year, or the equivalent of 20 000 Olympic swimming pools. Approximately 11% of it goes back to the textile industry through the industrial water aqueduct. At the same time the benefit is substantial: 4.5 million cubic metres remain in the natural water system. The rest of the water goes back into the surface water system.

Identified challenge (s)
Main results

Currently GIDA manages treatment plants for the municipalities of Prato, Vaiano, Vernio and Cantagallo, the Calice sewage treatment plant and the industrial aqueduct network. Now more than ever, GIDA is prepared to welcome the new challenges stemming from its role in research and the application of innovative and energy-efficient technologies such as:

  • the development of wastewater recycling through the industrial aqueduct;
  • the strengthening of a liquid waste disposal platform;
  • the harnessing of the energy potential of sludge resulting from treatment, and finally
  • active cooperation in the creation of a separate sewer for industrial wastewater.