As part of the Northern Ireland Science Festival’s tenth anniversary celebrations this week, NI Water recently welcomed the public to its historical Belfast Wastewater Heritage Centre to find out more about how we clean wastewater, as well as discovering the journey of our water from source to tap.

The free family-friendly event offered the opportunity to find out more about the processes NI Water uses to keep Northern Ireland’s water clean and safe in an ever changing and challenging environment and how we safely treat wastewater before returning it to the environment.

Staff from all areas of the business - scientists, environmentalists and apprentices– were on hand to showcase the many hidden elements that go into cleaning water, as well as providing tours of our Belfast Wastewater Treatment Works.  

Anna Killen, NI Water’s Outreach and Learning Officer commented, “The NI Science Festival is aimed at celebrating the science of you, the universe and everything in between. Here at NI Water, we wanted to wow our customers with the science behind cleaning water and wastewater and the importance of infrastructure in bringing clean, safe drinking water to the tap and returning treated wastewater safely to the environment.  

“We were delighted so many visitors came along to enjoy live demonstrations and tours hosted by our expert scientists, who test and check our water on a daily basis and wastewater colleagues who explained the processes involved in wastewater treatment.

“The hands-on event was also an opportunity for the public to understand how their water is treated and safely tested, while getting involved in some key experiments with our scientific team.”

Participants learned more about how NI Water cleans 605 million litres of water a day! It is an expensive process to clean and transport the water we use daily and the water treatment also uses huge volumes of electricity and energy. At the event we also explained more about how passionate NI Water is about the environment and how protecting this is key to us. The tours around Belfast Wastewater Treatment Works were a great opportunity to highlight the 

importance of the wastewater treatment process in protecting our environment. Thanks to all who attended the event!