Jan. 26, 2026
turning wastewater into value
GEA’s state-of-the-art centrifuges are emerging as frontline tools in the fight against water scarcity, transforming wastewater and its biosolids into recyclable resources and enabling a new era of reuse.
Despite some recent progress in water use and access, the world faces severe pressure on its water resources. The latest UN assessments show that economic growth has become slightly more water efficient – meaning it uses less water per unit of economic output – and that access to drinking water, sanitation and hygiene has expanded since 2015. But the overall picture remains alarming: in 2024, about 2.2 billion people lived without safely managed drinking water, 3.4 billion lacked adequate sanitation and barely half of all domestic wastewater was treated safely.
Water stress continues to intensify across many regions, and freshwater ecosystems – already among the most threatened on Earth – are steadily deteriorating. Today, water stress is not only an environmental issue, but a pressing human, economic and security challenge. Competition over shrinking water supplies is emerging as a major global risk, with the United Nations World Water Development Report 2024 warning that rising water stress is already heightening political tensions and contributing to instability in several regions. As the report notes, the likelihood of local or regional conflict increases as water becomes scarce, underscoring that inadequate cooperation over shared rivers and aquifers can deepen existing geopolitical strains.
Wastewater’s new role in water security
Tackling water scarcity requires a mix of smarter water use, stronger governance and technologies that stretch every available drop. Among the most powerful of these solutions is large‑scale wastewater reuse. As climate pressures intensify and freshwater supplies shrink, governments, cities and industries are turning to reclaimed water as one of the highest‑impact tools for closing the widening gap between supply and demand. The world is only beginning to tap this opportunity: According to 2024 UN data, just 56% of domestic wastewater is safely treated globally, and, in many low‑ and middle‑income countries, more than 80% of wastewater is still released untreated – one reason the UN-Water’s Progress on Wastewater Treatment – 2024 Update highlights water recycling and safe reuse as a priority action area.
Treating wastewater as a resource – rather than a liability – opens the door to a wide range of benefits. Modern treatment technologies allow reclaimed water to be used safely in agriculture and industry, sharply reducing freshwater withdrawals and improving overall water-use efficiency. Advanced purification can also supply high-quality water for municipal systems, easing pressure on stressed rivers, lakes and wetlands. Improved sludge treatment reduces the burden on landfills and waterways, cuts silt accumulation that contributes to flooding and enables energy and nutrient recovery. Beyond these gains, reclaimed water provides a stable, drought-resilient supply in a changing climate and supports greener, cooler urban environments through irrigation of parks, trees and restored wetlands.
Separation for a circular future
As wastewater reuse moves from a niche practice to a core pillar of global water strategy, the technologies that make it possible are evolving just as quickly. One area seeing especially rapid advancement is sludge and biosolids management – a critical but often overlooked step in producing – high-quality reclaimed water. This is where GEA’s separation technologies, particularly its biosolids decanters, are emerging as key enablers of the modern reuse ecosystem.
We can all do our bit in our homes and offices on a daily basis to try and conserve water, but around the world agriculture actually accounts for about 70% of fresh water usage. In addition, around 19% is used by industry, and about 12% is used for municipal purposes, which includes the water we use in our homes.
Historically, decanters have been used mainly to thicken or dewater sludge for easier handling and disposal. Their role was important but largely operational: reduce volume, cut transport costs and keep treatment plants running smoothly. But as the world’s priorities shift toward resource recovery, the function of these machines has expanded dramatically. GEA biosolids, manure and waste-processing decanters are designed to convert industrial wastewater solids, manure and fermentation residues into valuable resources, generating both energy and recyclable materials with optimal efficiency.
“Today, GEA’s environmental decanters are engineered not just to manage waste, but to unlock value from it,” explains Dinesh Gehani, Regional Product Sales Manager for GEA APAC. “They deliver far higher separation efficiency, enabling treatment plants to produce cleaner effluent suitable for reuse in agriculture, industry and even advanced purification for potable applications. At the same time, they generate drier, more stable biosolids that support energy recovery, nutrient extraction and safer, more sustainable disposal.”
GEA decanters on the front lines
Around the world, governments and industries are turning to GEA for the technologies that enable modern, efficient wastewater treatment. In Indonesia, India and many other regions, GEA decanters are already demonstrating how advanced separation can deliver measurable results on the ground.
Recognized in 2024 as the Philippines’ Best Public‑Private Partnership by the UK‑based International Finance Awards, the Davao City Bulk Water Supply Project (DCBWSP) stands out as an innovative model for sustainable urban development. Confronting severe groundwater depletion, the city now sources freshwater from the Tamugan River, with its treatment facility partly powered by the river’s own hydroelectric energy. “Water treatment is the core enabling function of the DCBWSP, allowing the city to shift safely from groundwater to a sustainable surface‑water source,” says Gehani. “Davao City historically depended on deep wells – now it can reduce aquifer depletion, prevent land subsidence, and secure long‑term water resilience.” The treatment plant currently operates using three state-of-the art GEA sludge Decanter pro 6000.
In the Serpong region of Banten Province, Indonesia, the direct discharge of sludge from a major water treatment plant into the river had for many years represented a direct cause of river silting, which led to repeated flooding of the river basin and its communities. In 2018 GEA began work with the PT Tirta Kerta Raharja municipality to upgrade its treatment plant, designing, building and installing a sludge management system. Since launching the system in 2019, sludge discharge into the river has been reduced by 3.6 million liters per day. To date, this has relieved the river and local communities of some 8 billion liters of sludge and dramatically reduced river silting.
In the Bengaluru region of India, nearly 100 GEA environmental decanters have been installed across local treatment plants since 2019 to reclaim water from processed sewage. The recovered water is fed back into to the treatment plant for further purification before being safely released into local waterways. One standout example is Sarakki Lake, where improved wastewater treatment has helped restore water quality and revive wildlife after years of urbanization and pollution. GEA decanters currently commissioned and operating across the region are helping reclaim 4 billion liters of water from the sludge annually. Across India GEA decanters recover some 9 billion liters of water each year.
GEA decanters reduce the volume of sewage sludge by up to 90%. The decanter centrifuges are typically used to dewater the sludge that settles out of suspension early on the sewage treatment process, but are also applied to remove water from sludge that is processed in the downstream drinking water treatment plants.
Built for what’s next
Modern GEA decanters are designed for continuous, automated operation, with improved wear protection, optimized bowl geometry and control systems that maintain performance even under fluctuating loads. “GEA’s technology is also adapting to the new pressures facing utilities: tighter discharge limits, rising sludge volumes, climate-driven variability in influent quality and the need for energy-efficient, low-maintenance equipment,” says Gehani. “This makes them especially valuable in regions scaling up reuse infrastructure quickly or retrofitting older plants to meet new standards.”
As wastewater reuse becomes a strategic necessity rather than an optional upgrade, GEA decanters are moving from background equipment to frontline technology – enabling treatment plants to produce cleaner water, recover more resources and operate more efficiently in a world where water scarcity is already a reality. Ultimately, today’s decanters help utilities extract greater value from every stage of treatment, delivering the efficiency and resilience the global water crisis demands.
Slashing industrial water consumption
Beyond advanced wastewater-management technologies, GEA innovations are cutting water consumption directly at the source in countless production processes. Through its AddBetter ecolabel, GEA highlights solutions that help customers reduce energy use, water demand and emissions. Standout examples in the area of water saving include:
GEA EcoSpin2 Zero (Bottling)
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New water-rinsing unit cuts water use by up to 91% on new machines.
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Delivers 83% water savings when retrofitted to existing bottling lines
GEA Centrifuge Water Saving Unit
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Eliminates cooling water demand for separators
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Achieves a 100% reduction in cooling water consumption compared to conventional systems
GEA Separators with integrated direct drives IDD and GEA Advanced Water Supply
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Advanced control optimizes operating and cooling water needed during operation
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Results in water savings of at least 48% compared to centrifugal separators featuring IDD drives without Advanced Water Supply
GEA MaxiClean Drum Cleaning Machine (Food Forming)
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Integrated into the MaxiFormer drum forming system
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Reduces water consumption by up to 62% when cleaning drums for formed food product
GEA Smart Filtration Flush (Membrane Filtration)
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Software-based optimization of CIP flush cycles in membrane systems
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Cuts water use during CIP flush by up to 52% across food and beverage applications
