Water Management in Manufacturing: How Alier Is Closing the Loop in Its Plastics Plant

Caring for water doesn’t start at the drain. It starts much earlier, in how processes are designed, how inefficiencies are identified, and how every litre can be put to better use before it ever leaves the plant.

That principle is behind one of Alier’s most significant operational investments of 2026: a new DAF system (Dissolved Air Flotation) for its plastics plant, designed to treat water internally, remove suspended solids, and enable large-scale recirculation within the process itself.

What Is a DAF System and Why Does It Matter?

Dissolved Air Flotation is a water treatment process that removes suspended solids by introducing microscopic air bubbles into the water. The bubbles attach to solid particles and bring them to the surface, where they can be separated and removed. The result is significantly cleaner water, clean enough to be reused within the industrial process rather than discharged.

In Alier’s case, the new DAF system has been designed to treat up to 3,000 m³ per day of water, with peak capacity of 175 m³/h. The starting point is water with a suspended solids concentration of 2,000–2,500 mg/L. The target is to bring that below 100 mg/L,  a reduction of over 95%.

The Problem It Solves

Until now, excess water from Alier’s plastics plant has been travelling through intermediate circuits, including the Trommel pit and paste circuits, generating accumulation, overflow, and operational instability. In practice, this has meant periodic stops to avoid both environmental and operational impact.

The new system addresses the problem at the source. Water from the plastics plant will be treated in its own dedicated DAF unit, with a large proportion recirculated directly within the plastics plant. This removes the pressure on the primary general treatment system and eliminates the instability caused by water “travelling” through circuits it wasn’t designed to handle.

The Operational and Environmental Impact

The benefits are concrete and measurable:

• Less fresh water consumption. More water recirculated internally means less clean water drawn into the process from outside.
• Less pressure on the general treatment system. By treating plastic waste separately and at source, the load on the plant’s primary depuration infrastructure is significantly reduced.
• Greater operational resilience. Eliminating overflow points and intermediate instability results in fewer stops, more predictable operations, and better day-to-day water management across the entire plant.

The system is expected to be fully operational by July 2026.

Preparing for Future Growth

Beyond the immediate operational improvements, this project is also a strategic enabler. With the new DAF system in place, Alier will be able to run four washing lines in the future, doubling its plastic recycling capacity. Without this investment, that level of growth simply would not be viable.

It is a clear example of how environmental responsibility and industrial ambition are not opposites. Treating water more efficiently is not just the right thing to do, it is what makes scaling up possible.

A Commitment Aligned With Global Goals

This project sits within Alier’s broader commitment to Sustainable Development Goal 6: clean water and sanitation for all by 2030. But beyond the framework, it reflects a straightforward operational philosophy: the improvements that transform a system are not always the most visible ones. They are the ones that make everything else work better.

Alier has been investing in this kind of structural, process-level improvement consistently, because sustainable manufacturing is not built in single gestures. It is built into the decisions made every day about how resources move through a plant.

The new DAF system in the plastics plant is one of those decisions.