The extreme heat and persistent drought are affecting the entire country. That is why Raffinerie Tirlemontoise is making purified residual water available as spray water. Farmers, green services or other players in need can collect up to 1,000,000 litres or around 40 trucks of water every day.
Purified beet water for agriculture and green services
“Water is in the DNA of a sugar factory,” says Jan Ingels, Director of the Sugar Factories. “A sugar beet consists of approximately 75% water. This is recovered during the beet campaign and reused as washing water and process water.” The total water flow within Raffinerie Tirlemontoise is optimally managed, recovered where possible and purified. Nevertheless, we are left with residual water at the end of the production process. “It is this water that we are happy to make available to the farmers of the region, the green services or other players in need."
Water recovery, a long-term vision
The sugar factory has been working on water recovery for decades. The residual water has been purified since the 1980s. Since 2018, purified water has also been made available to farmers and the city's green services.
However, the Raffinerie Tirlemontoise is aware of the increasing drought problem and is expanding its plans with "De Tiense Watervelden". The aim of this is to recover and purify even more water in order to provide drinking water for 10,000 families and extra irrigation water for farmers, in collaboration with the Water Group. More information at www.tiensewatervelden.be
Practical information about water collection
Anyone who might be interested in this can register for water collection by sending an email to tnnportiers [at] raftir.be (tnnportiers[at]raftir[dot]be). Farmers can submit a request to their contact person at the agricultural service.
Tiense suiker is also included on WaterRadar, a tool that shows the supply and demand of water.
