Introduction
With a colorful history of European settlement and rugged industrialization, Sydney’s Blackwattle Bay has been home to its bustling fish market for the last 60 years. This, at times, raw Sydney institution has been a cultural hub, commercial precinct and thriving tourist attraction, all rolled into one.
Now, a new, state-of-the-art Sydney Fish Market has emerged in Blackwattle Bay as a progressive, innovative architectural vision featuring an eye-catching wave-shaped, scale encrusted roof. This new facility has ambitious sustainability targets – not the least of which is to reduce the volume of fresh water required on site.
aquacell and Sydney Fish Market
Australia’s ‘Home of Seafood’ has always required enormous water supplies for daily operations like ‘washdowns’.
Yet despite expanding more than twofold in size, the new facility aims to reduce potable water use by at least 45%.
Aquacell has been charged with the considerable task of achieving this imposing target by treating the massive market day ‘ice melt’ together with rainwater collected off the roof, tradewaste water, such that it is then able to be reused on site.
the aquacell solution
Aquacell’s design and engineering team faced the challenge of a fundamentally different kind of wastewater. The solution incorporates a unique heat exchange unit to assist in treating the wastewater biologically, an innovative approach to navigate the low temperatures of the wastewater.
This heated content is then directed through a flow equalisation tank, and a biological digestion process, converting long chain bacteria molecules into spherical molecules which are more easily filtered through Aquacell’s ingenious microscopic membrane system. The final stage of filtration utlises reverse osmosis, eliminating salts.
The treated water is then ready to be reused for cooling towers, toilet flushing in the building and wash down operations.
Aquacell’s solution sits at the very heart of the new Sydney Fish Market’s sustainability and water efficiency targets and is vital in achieving the new facility’s 5 Star Green Star rating – awarded by the Green Building Council of Australia.