For many years now, Sala Graupera nursery has been committed to the sustainability of its facilities, which is why in 2008 the surplus water from irrigation and rain is channeled, collected and processed in a treatment plant, with the aim of taking advantage of a resource as scarce as water. In 2014 our nursery enrolled in the MPS environmental certification system. More recently, during 2016, photovoltaic panels were installed to harness solar energy and a very innovative leachate treatment system was also built, which we will talk about below.
On November 9th, a seminar on Circular Horticulture and Gardening on the management of water, nutrients and leachates took place at the Barcelona School of Agriculture. In one of the presentations, Sala Graupera presented the system recently incorporated in the nursery for the treatment of leachates from the irrigation of our facilities.
This system is based on the recovery of leachates to proceed to their filtering through a slow horizontal sand filter built under the cultivation area; subsequently they are purified through artificial wetlands, in this way the levels of nitrates, potassium and phosphorus are reduced. Finally we obtain water that can be reused and incorporated back into the irrigation system.
The scheme shown below illustrates the operation of the system:
Scheme of a Cleanleach. Source: www.cleanleach.eu