With an investment of 3.3 million euros, the mayor of Nelas, Joaquim Amaral, has shared that there is money available to proceed with the idea of reusing treated wastewater for industry and, eventually, for agriculture. As he defends “the wastewater returns, after being treated, to the water cycle, in this case to the business sector, the productive sector, at a lower value, more profitable for companies, saving water for human consumption”.

As Joaquim Amaral told Lusa News Agency, “The project doubled in value, taking into account a series of factors, such as the increase in raw materials and labour, in the post-Covid era and following the war in Ukraine and, as a result, the project grew to 3.3 million euros”. Previously, the allocation was “just over 800 thousand euros of financing and that went up to 1.2 million euros”. With this invitation notice, the new allocation is “2.3 million euros which already allows it to be carried out because otherwise, it would be almost unsustainable”.

The Court of Auditors' approval is still needed for the contractor, the only one who applied for this project, to be able to move forward with the project that will enable drinking water to be set aside for consumption. As the mayor explained, “We will stop discharging into the water environment, we will stop discharging into rivers. It is a more sustainable environmental solution and makes the water cycle more efficient, in a circular economy, because there is no waste”.

According to the mayor of Nelas, the project is expected to start in early 2025. After that, they will analyse if the water is of good quality (which is expected to be) and later used for purposes other than industry, such as cleaning public areas. As Joaquim Amaral stated, “We are working towards a circular economy, but we are contributing to a more sustainable municipality and to a region, country and planet that is much more environmentally sustainable and if there were no special attention paid to this project, it would be, at the very least, an inaccessible lack of sensitivity”.