Business View Magazine - Sept 2023

179 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 10, ISSUE 9 SPI RAC (USA) Providing innovative recovery technologies and water treatment processes to embrace sustainability and efficiency are viable routes ahead, and one leading expert in the field, Spirac (USA) Inc. has taken the lead on engineering viable long-term initiatives in this area. “Historically, biosolids were either just disposed of in landfills, or sometimes used for agricultural applications, and in other cases, even incinerated,” explains Fritz Egger, General Manager of Spirac, USA. His is an engineering company specializing in municipal wastewater handling and machines and systems including screening, grit, and sludge solutions. “These days, cities are using biosolids and methane to generate electricity. The reuse of biosolids is really the future of the industry and the pace of innovation is accelerating geometrically.” Since its inception in Sweden in the ‘70s, the Spirac name has evolved into a globally- recognized provider of waste-handling systems for sewage, paper, food, and biomass industries. Today, the firm has additional physical locations in the U.S., Australia, the U.K., and the Netherlands. Within the U.S., Spirac (USA) Inc. subcontracts most of its manufacturing and gets some of its componentry from the Swedish factory. They’re also investing in what Egger says is a ‘significant’ capital project, with plans to double their manufacturing footprint in Sweden. “The wastewater treatment industry really began in 1972, when the Clean Water Act was passed, and lots of plants were built at that time,” Egger mentions. “These plants are 30 or 40 years old at this point, so there’s a lot of infrastructure upgrading happening across the country. And with the Biden Administration’s infrastructure plan, there’s a tremendous amount of money that will be coming into our particular sector. That’s been sorely needed for decades, but it bodes really well for the industry, which has typically grown at a 3-5% annual rate. I think that’s going to