Vacuum Sewer - Project Examples

Project Examples

The county of Sarasota, Florida and the city of Carnation, Washington are developing a county wide collection system and is incorporating vacuum sewers.

In Germany, several hundred well-working systems are operating since the 1970s. Especially in the Middle East (United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman), vacuum sewer systems become more and more important due to easy and fast installation along with water saving effects and easiness of maintenance.

The world's most famous vacuum sewer project is currently the Palm Island Jumeirah, located at the coast of Dubai City, United Arab Emirates. Approx. 23.000 people will be connected to this vacuum sewer system with only 1 central vacuum station. The vacuum station is considered to be the biggest vacuum station in the world.

The biggest installation in Europe (several vacuum stations) can be found in Gerasdorf (near Vienna), Austria, where many benefits of a vacuum sewer system helped to overcome difficult conditions in this mountainous area.

Good examples can be found on the Maldives, the post-tsunami WATSAN project UNICEF - UN, where on several islands vacuum sewer systems have been the best option. Several other project, mainly for resorts, have already been realized on the Maldives.

Vacuum sewer systems are not only used in the Europe or Middle East but even in low developed third world countries. Several vacuum sewer systems have been already built or are currently under construction in Africa (South Africa, Botswana, Namibia) for townships and rural areas where the benefit of fast construction time, cost saving trenching and high flexibility have come to full effect.

Australia has been one of the largest users of vacuum sewer systems due to the low installation and operational costs. The largest system to-date has been at the Tea Gardens development in New South Wales, which will ultimately handle over 4.500 houses. The Water Corporation in Western Australia is considered the largest single owner of vacuum systems in the world with over 30 schemes now under their operational control.

The United Kingdom is well served by Vacuum Sewerage Systems, the region most extensively served are the low lying fenlands of the East of England. High water tables (in some cases less than 1metre below the surface) and poor ground conditions have meant that the local Water Company, Anglian Water, has embraced the use of Vacuum Sewerage, taking advantage of the system's requirement for small bore sewer pipes laid in shallow trenches, dramatically reducing the requirement for pumping stations as would be required by conventional gravity sewer systems. The largest Vacuum Sewerage scheme in this region serves the villages of Outwell and Upwell, 4 vacuum collection stations serve some 1500 homes in this agglomeration. On initial costings for a conventional gravity sewer to serve the area, previously served by domestic septic settlement tanks the site would have required the installation of 32 pumping stations. Using a vacuum sewer system, this number of pumping stations was reduced to 4 vacuum stations. Other companies in the UK such as Southern water operate vacuum sewer systems, too.

Lately, vacuum sewer systems become popular for industrial and commercial projects as well, where only little domestic waste water occurs and where the flexibility of a vacuum sewer system allows easy coordination with usually plenty of other utilities in the ground. Good examples can be found again in the Middle East, such as some small industrial areas in the Emirate of Ras al Khaimah or the newly built Qatalum Aluminium Plant in Qatar, the world's largest primary aluminium plant.

The well known eco-city of Masdar, U.A.E., uses a vacuum sewer system as well to separate grey from black water.