About us

L-Recycling builds and operates sewage sludge recycling plants for the recovery of phosphorus in the form of biochar. The management team has many years of experience in the fields of wastewater, wastewater treatment plant construction, environmental engineering and project management.

L-Recycling is part of Liechtenstein Group, a group of companies owned by the Princely House of Liechtenstein that manages a portfolio of global businesses in Agriculture and Food, Forestry, Renewable Energy and Real Estate.

Europe produces 50 million tons
of sewage sludge per year

We shower, flush our toilets and wash our dishes every day. But what happens to all that wastewater after it's discharged into the sewer system? It ends up in sewage treatment plants, where it is purified.

Millions of tons of sewage sludge are left behind.

Due to the use of phosphorus as a fertilizer in agriculture, it is present in high concentrations in the wastewater and thus in the sewage sludge. In addition, there are also various environmental toxins (e.g. heavy metals such as copper and zinc, pharmaceutical residues, microplastics, etc.). At EU and national level, new directives and regulations are therefore intended to restrict the direct agricultural use of sewage sludge in the future.

The alternative is incineration, but this also involves burning the valuable phosphorus. Several new regulations aim to ban "complete incineration" and require the recovery of the phosphorus. Operators of wastewater treatment plants are therefore challenged to find new ways to dispose of sewage sludge and to ensure that the phosphorus is recovered.

WHAT WE DO

The solution: sewage sludge recycling through pyrolysis

What we offer

Construction and operation of sewage sludge recycling plants
Holistic solution: drying, carbonization and recycling of the final product: from sewage sludge to biochar
Decentralized & modular: Modular plants starting at 5,000 tons/year, which can be installed and operated directly on site
Technological advantage: Proven pyrolysis technology for sewage sludge
Legally compliant disposal and phosphorus recovery
Long-term contracts and price security: We offer contracts with a term of > 15 years

Valuable phosphorus

Phosphorus is a vital element for plants and animals and, as a nutrient, controls the energy balance in cells. In agriculture, phosphorus is used as a fertilizer to achieve high crop yields. It is on the EU's list of critical raw materials, as the EU has to import a great deal of it due to limited phosphorus reserves in Europe.

Phosphorus is extracted from phosphate rock, which is finite and mined in only a few countries (mainly countries in Africa, China and Russia). 95 percent of the deposits are under the control of only ten countries.