The German Association for Water, Wastewater and Waste (DWA) threw out a challenge to international teams to take part in the Championship held the IFAT event in Germany recently. The competition drew entries from around thirty teams, including from Austria, Egypt, Germany, Slovenia, and the USA.
The championship is a professional competition in which the operating personnel in wastewater treatment plants need to compete in several disciplines. They were required to demonstrate how they abide by the occupational health and safety requirements when rescuing an injured colleague from a shaft; they also had to prove that they have mastered how to maintain and repair based on the example of an underwater motor pump. Other disciplines included demonstrating the ability to handle measuring and control devices rapidly and in the correct manner, and that they can control process operations.
This exercise required that a flow diagram of a water treatment plant be created on a whiteboard utilising magnetic cards, as well as the identification and remedying of a malfunction.
Young academics were tasked to simulate the relationship between water use, environmental sustainability and social and economic development; assess an innovative idea and suitably combine structural development measures from the areas of water, waste and energy.
Participants also had to demonstrate their mastery of the control and measuring in drains and wastewater treatment plants.
Rüdiger Heidebrecht, head of the DWA department Training and International Relations and the initiator of the competitions, said that although the competition was hard, the teams put a lot of commitment into their tasks and that as far as he was concerned, everyone who took part is already a winner because the motivation and the team spirit that was shown by all is what really counts, and that it is this kind of passion for water that employers like to see.
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