Solvay, operating as Rhodia in Brazil, and Veolia announced a groundbreaking achievement in water resilience.

The Santo André industrial plant now recycles 94% of the water it consumes, saving 133 olympic swimming pools worth of fresh water every year.

This achievement directly addresses the severe drought risk in the São Paulo region, effectively de-risking the plant operations and driving it toward near-total water independence.

The partnership leveraged Veolia's expertise in water technologies to transform the existing wastewater facility into a high-quality recovery system. Instead of building new infrastructure, Veolia integrated its advanced ZeeWeedMBR membrane technology into the current one. This smart upgrade created a closed-loop system, continuously converting effluent into high-quality water for the plant industrial processes.

“The significant improvement in water recovery now allows us to use it reliably across more applications”, stated Ronia Oisiovici, Rhodia’s Sustainability & R&I Manager. “It is a fundamental shift toward the circular economy that is fully aligned with Solvay’s commitment to reduce freshwater withdrawal in water-stressed locations globally.”

Mauro Cruz, Executive Vice President and Head of Veolia’s water technologies activities in Latin America, commented: "This project reflects Veolia’s ability to integrate high-performance engineering with a robust, results-oriented operational model. It exemplifies our GreenUp strategic program, where water technologies are a booster and serve as a catalyst for ecological transformation. We are proud to accompany how we work with our clients such as Rhodia to transform their environmental goals into concrete, scalable solutions by placing ecology at the heart of industrial processes, demonstrating that performance and sustainability can - and must - go hand in hand.”

The Santo André plant is Solvay's near-century-old hub for textile innovation in Brazil. Since 1929, it has driven market revolutions, first with "artificial silk" and later with synthetic fibers. Today, it is a critical producer of advanced, sustainable polymers - like Emana, Amni, and Rhodianyl - that shape the global textile and engineering plastics industries.