Proud to be part of 5 years #waterreborn
We support communities to thrive by cleaning household waste water.
Take a look at where we live on the BluElephant community map.
- Low on
(solar) energy - Extremely
compact - Easy to
operate - Supreme
water quality
Our worldwide habitats
Take a look at the communities that welcomed us.
Twelve of us are already at work. From our home ground in the Netherlands and Belgium to five of us cleaning water in Salfit on the West Bank — every herd member is looked after by the community around it, and together we are getting ready to move into many more neighbourhoods in the year ahead.
- Silvolde, the Netherlands — 1 BluElephant
- Salfit, West Bank — 5 BluElephants
- Almelo, the Netherlands — 1 BluElephant
- Denekamp, the Netherlands — 2 BluElephants
- Enschede, the Netherlands — 1 BluElephant
- Herentals, Belgium — 2 BluElephants
Public Private Partnership
We were created through a collaboration between public and private organisations. Meet these partners:
World Waternet
Vechtstromen Water Board
Royal Netherlands Army
Jotem Water Solutions
Saxion University of Applied Sciences
Rob van Opdorp Product Designs
Technical info
Inside us live millions of bacteria — an activated sludge that does the heavy lifting. After they have done their work, ultrafiltration separates the clean water from the sludge, and UV disinfection adds a second barrier against pathogens. What comes out can flush toilets, water crops or flow safely into surface water. Even the leftover sludge keeps going: it makes good compost.
360°Meet us from every side. [ROTATING BLUELEPHANT — FILE TO SUPPLY: the turntable clip plays here]
Video“One elephant doesn’t make a difference, but a whole caravan does.” — two minutes with the people behind us.
The whole cycle, end to end
Capacity
One home or apartment block: the household water of 50 to 150 people, every day.
Treatment steps
Activated sludge → ultrafiltration → UV disinfection.
What we remove
Pathogens, plus nitrogen and phosphate down to an optimal level.
Natural polishing
A wetland or hydroponic bed planted with halophytes gives the water a last natural pass.
Where the water goes
Crop irrigation, toilet flushing, surface water — or back into the aquifer, directly or by infiltration through the wetland.
Drinking water
An optional point-of-entry unit with activated carbon and UV feeds drinking water back to the residence through a ½” pipe.
Energy
Low consumption, with solar panels on us and on the ultrafiltration unit.
Connections
A buffer tank with shredding pump feeds us through a 2″ PP pipe; our shell is made of recycled plastics.
Size & weight
[L × W × H, WEIGHT AND EFFLUENT VALUES — TO SUPPLY]
Design for life
Designing for life means creating the conditions in which life can thrive — all life, including life that looks different, lives far away or comes after us. Dutch designer Ruurd Priester put that idea at the heart of the book Ontwerpen voor leven (Designing for life, 2022). It is at the heart of us too: clean water is where life starts, so we give household waste water a new life right where it was used.
Priester borrows two design principles from Doughnut Economics. Regenerative: leave take-make-waste behind and work with the cycles of the living world. So we run on little energy and our own solar panels, our shell is made of recycled plastics, and the water we clean goes back to crops, toilets, surface water or the aquifer. Even our leftover sludge becomes compost.
Distributive: share rather than concentrate, spread rather than scale up. We are small enough for one home or an apartment block, simple enough for the community around us to operate, and mobile enough to move where we are needed — no central plant required. One elephant at a time, looked after by the people who welcomed us. And, as Priester asks of every designer, we were made by going deep and doing it together: public and private partners, side by side.
Ontwerpen voor leven
Read or download the book (PDF)
Join the herd
Want to become a distributor, invite us to your community, or ask us something technical? Tell us a little about yourself — we read every message ourselves.
Prefer email? info@bluelephant.global