Activities of the PILLS project

Different activities are implemented by the partners. Besides the characterisation of different hospital waste water, all partners identify key pharmaceuticals which are to be focused on. In this context some partners focus on isolated streams resulting from a specific department and others assess the total flow of a hospital. Furthermore the partners focus on the reduction of antibiotic resistant bacteria in wastewater.

Advanced wastewater treatment at local sources

Four partners of the project from the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and Swit­zerland are each building a pilot plant in cooperation with a local hospital. While the Waterschap Groot Salland in the Netherlands and the Emschergenossenschaft in Germany are building full-scale wastewa­ter treatment plants, which treat virtually the entire hospital wastewater, the part­ners from Switzerland and Luxembourg are installing smaller pilot-scale wastewa­ter treatment plants treating partial flows of the hospital wastewater to support the design and operation of full-scale plants.

The pilot plants are characterised by a combination of technologies, which has the objective of eliminating the largely per­sistent residues of medicinal products in addition to the biodegradable substances and nutrients. For this reason conventional wastewater treatment processes are ap­plied in the PILLS plants which are com­plemented by advanced techniques.

For further details, please do also have a look into the PILLS brochure: PILLS-Brochure