Filtration equipment worth 9.5 billion soums has been installed at the Salar wastewater treatment plant to eliminate its persistent foul odor, the Tashkent city administration's press service reported.
According to the city government, the plant's wastewater basins have been hermetically sealed, with air now passing through filters before release.
"The equipment has been running for more than 15 days now, and the unpleasant smell around the facility has disappeared as a result. Residents of nearby areas have confirmed this as well," the Tashkent mayor’s office said in its statement.
Dunanbay Kazibekov, chief process engineer at Toshkent Shahar Suv Ta'minoti, the city's water utility, said in a video released by the hokimiyat that the plant's second-stage treatment facilities process wastewater from the Sergeli, Yangihayot, Mirabad and Yashnabad districts. The filtration equipment was imported from Russia.
Kazibekov also explained how the odor-control system works. Air is drawn in by a fan and passed through 11.5 tons of a catalytic sorbent material, he said, where ultraviolet radiation ozonates and oxidizes it. The air then passes through 2.5 tons of activated carbon, after which the concentration of hydrogen sulfide and ammonia in the outgoing air drops to zero, according to Kazibekov.
President Shavkat Mirziyoyev had earlier ordered officials to eliminate the foul smell coming from the treatment facility in the Sergeli and Yangihayot districts by September 1.
Back in May 2021, the water utility reported that the odor spreading through the Uzgarish neighborhood in the Sergeli district was primarily caused by enterprises discharging wastewater and waste into the aeration station and the Bozsu canal. The Senate's relevant committee later said it was drafting a government resolution that would call for reconstructing local treatment facilities at these enterprises and relocating five tanneries outside Tashkent.
Separately, the UAE-based Abu Dhabi Sewerage Services Company (ADSSC) had planned to begin construction of a new wastewater treatment plant for Tashkent in January 2024. In August of that year, officials said a new facility capable of processing 1 million cubic meters of wastewater per day would be built in the Tashkent province, giving more than 500,000 city residents and 100 enterprises access to centralized sewage service. The project is being carried out by a consortium of companies from the UAE, France and Japan.
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