With a ceremony on 26 August, TRIMET put the completely new wastewater system of the aluminum smelter in Essen into operation. Philipp Schlüter, Chairman of the Executive Board of TRIMET Aluminium SE, and Dr. Andreas Lützerath, TRIMET Executive Board member and Plant Manager of the Essen production site, together with Essen's Lord Mayor Thomas Kufen and Professor Dr. Uli Paetzel, Chairman of the Emschergenossenschaft, set the new pumping stations in motion.

"As a local producer of basic materials, we take responsibility for the region. For us, commitment to environmental protection and landscape conservation are part of securing our location in the long term," explained TRIMET CEO Philipp Schlüter. TRIMET has created an additional sewer network to treat the various wastewaters separately and to better control the inflow volumes into the water bodies. 

"By redesigning the wastewater system, TRIMET Aluminium SE is not only participating in the renaturation of the Emscher and Berne rivers, it is also proving that it is aware of its ecological and social responsibility," said Mayor Kufen. 

"The new wastewater system advances the major project to renaturalize the Emscher and helps to gear water management in our region to the consequences of climate change, such as increased heavy rainfall. Measures like this strengthen the natural water cycle and use rainwater as a resource," said Professor Dr. Uli Paetzel, CEO of the Emschergenossenschaft. "The project is thus an important contribution to our future initiative Klima.Werk." In the network, Emschergenossenschaft, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and Emscher municipalities are working on the climate-friendly transformation of the region.

Rainwater from the roofs of the plant halls and the sealed surfaces of the plant site flows into the Berne in a controlled manner in the separate sewer network. In order to be able to control the runoff volumes, especially during heavy rainfall, TRIMET has built two retention basins and two pumping stations, each of which can pump up to 2,200 liters of water per second into the basins. After subsequent sedimentation and filtration, the purified water is discharged from there into the Berne River. The cooling water from the production facilities and the sanitary wastewater from the production plant are collected in a second sewer system. The water collected here is discharged via two discharge points into the wastewater canal of the Emschergenossenschaft and treated in the wastewater treatment plants of the public water management association. 

For the installation of the additional wastewater system, TRIMET laid new sewers along a stretch of 4.5 kilometers. The extensive earthworks for laying the sewers, retention basins and pumping stations during ongoing production operations presented a major logistical challenge. Traffic routes on the plant roads had to be rerouted and operating points temporarily relocated. TRIMET invested several million euros in the reconstruction of the wastewater system. The measure was supported by the Emschergenossenschaft with public funds.