As part of an application for the first edition of the “Hydric Efficiency at School” competition, the installation of a wastewater treatment system was recently completed at EB 2, 3 Padre João Coelho Cabanita School, in Loulé, for further use of wastewater treated water (or water for reuse) in the irrigation of the cultivated spaces of the school.

The recovery and use of what would otherwise be waste will have a dual function here. On the one hand, this system will make it possible to use an alternative source of water, but perfectly suited to the intended use, helping to reduce water consumption from the public distribution network in the school. On the other hand, the fact that it is a school community involved in the reuse of water will raise awareness of a growing – and worrying – trend of scarcity of water availability in our region and the need to look at this resource differently precious and the ways in which it is used in daily life.

 It should be noted that the EB 2,3 Padre Cabanita School has several spaces planted with olive groves and other fruit trees, aromatic and ornamental species and a pedagogical vegetable garden, in an area of many hundreds of square meters where students from the education and training courses in "Golf Course Operator" work and acquire new skills.

Close to this area, there are changing rooms that support the sports activities that take place on the synthetic grass playing field located there and which are intensively used, with around 100 students and 215 athletes passing through there weekly.

It is recalled that, within the scope of the Algarve Regional Water Efficiency Plan, the Portuguese Environment Agency – Administration of the Algarve Hydrographic Region (APA) promoted, in 2021, the first edition of the “Water Efficiency at School” contest, to which Loulé City Council competed with three joint applications: the Loulé Secondary School, the EB 2, 3 Padre João Coelho Cabanita School and the Cândido Guerreiro Professional School.

All of them were recognized by the competition jury, which distinguished them, respectively, with a 1st prize in the ‘Performance’ category and a 2nd and 3rd prize in the ‘Monitoring’ category. The amounts associated with each application for the implementation of the interventions and initiatives for which they were proposed are, respectively, €15,000.00, €10,000.00 and €5,000.00.

On a visit to the School where this “environmentally friendly” system was installed, on May 19th, as part of Loulé Climate Week, councilor Carlos Carmo reinforced that “the initiatives that integrate these three applications are a practical sign of the realization of the climate action and environmental safeguard policy that is in progress.”