Turning organic waste into something worth having
Municipal sludge, food waste, biomass, vegetable protein — wherever there's water to remove, solids to recover and value to be reclaimed, Haarslev applies the same engineering that has made us the world's number-one name in rendering.
One set of capabilities. Many kinds of organic material.
For more than fifty years, Haarslev has built its reputation on a single, deceptively simple problem: how do you separate water from solids, recover what's valuable, and do it reliably, hygienically and at industrial scale — day after day, without stopping?
We solve that problem for meat, poultry and fish processors. We solve exactly the same problem for the operators of wastewater treatment plants, biogas facilities, biomass dryers and protein producers. The raw material changes. The engineering does not.
In other words: if you have organic material and a reason to recover value from it, you are already in Haarslev's world.
Rendering & Processing Know-How
The Haarslev capabilities behind every line we build
Whatever the segment, the value we add comes from the same set of specialist capabilities — combined and engineered to fit your process, not sold off the shelf.
Project planning, systems integration & co-development
This is where a Haarslev project begins, long before any equipment is specified. We work with you to plan the whole process, integrate it into your site and, where it makes sense, develop new solutions together. It is what separates a supplier of components from a partner who delivers a working, optimised line - and it is the capability our largest, most ambitious customers value most.
Material handling & in-plant transport
Moving wet, heavy, abrasive and often awkward material around a plant without leaks, blockages or contamination — pumps, conveyors and feed systems engineered for exactly the material you're running.
Particle size reduction
Crushing, grinding and breaking material down to the right, consistent size so everything downstream — drying, separation, digestion — works efficiently and predictably.
Mechanical & thermal separation and dewatering
The heart of what we do: pressing, decanting, evaporating and drying to take water out and pull valuable solids, fats and proteins back into the value chain. This is the capability that turns a sludge into a dry, stable, transportable product.
Process control & automation
Lines that largely run themselves — our CORE process control keeps drying, separation and energy use optimised in real time, adapts to changing input, and lets small teams run large plants safely.
Odour management
Thermal oxidisers, scrubbers, air washers and closed systems that keep operations compliant and keep you on good terms with the community around the plant — essential for sites near towns and cities.
Life-cycle support
Haarslev Global Services: installation, commissioning, training, spare parts, rebuilds and upgrades - keeping a line running and improving for decades. Because downtime is the worst thing that can happen to any processing operation.
Sludge drying for municipal wastewater
Urbanisation, rising living standards and tighter environmental rules are producing more municipal sludge than ever - and landfilling or hauling it wet is no longer viable, affordable or acceptable. The answer is to take the water out: a dried sludge is a fraction of the volume, far cheaper to transport, safe to store, and ready to be incinerated for energy, used as fuel, or returned to agriculture as a stabilised biosolid.
This is large-scale, energy-intensive work, and it is precisely where Haarslev's disc-dryer technology has set the benchmark. Our solutions are built to handle very large volumes of organic material with low energy consumption, simple operation and the kind of reliable, long-term performance that municipal operators depend on.
Up to 80%
energy recovered through heat recovery
90–95%
dry-solids biosolid granules
What we deliver:
- Disc dryers (TST / rotadisc) - indirectly steam-heated, gentle on the product, and built for the very high capacities municipal plants demand. Designed to PED, ASME, GOST or marine standards.
- Rotary drum dryers — directly fired, single-pass, producing 90–95% dry-solids biosolid granules suitable for agriculture or fuel, fully ATEX / NFPA compliant.
- Semi-drying lines for incineration — removing enough water for efficient, energy-positive incineration, integrated with the customer's fluidised-bed plant.
- Biosolids flash coolers and downstream handling — for safe, clean finished product.
- Complete, integrated lines — planned, built, installed, commissioned and supported by Haarslev, end to end.
Setting the benchmark across China and Southeast Asia
Through 2025, Haarslev has been setting new standards for sludge drying and incineration across China and Southeast Asia — one of the fastest-growing markets in the world for large-scale sludge treatment.
150 t/day
non-anaerobic municipal sludge
Singapore Environment Agency (SEA)
Southeast Asia's largest sludge incineration facility. Haarslev supplied four complete semi-drying production lines, built around our disc dryers, to remove water from the sludge before incineration.
700 t/day
sludge treated daily
Gezhouba Water Group Co., Ltd.
The largest sludge incineration installation in northern China. Haarslev disc-dryer technology running in Phase III, handling sludge from the Tianjin Jingu wastewater treatment facility and three further plants.
800 t/day
sludge treated daily
Chengdu Xingrong Environment Group Co., Ltd.
The largest sludge incineration facility in southwestern China. Haarslev disc-dryer technology in service in Phase III, treating sludge from Chengdu's No. 9 Water Purification Plant.
Three of the largest sludge operations in their regions. One technology partner.
The same engineering, more places to apply it
Wastewater sludge is where many operators meet Haarslev first — but the same capabilities reach across the rest of the bioprocessing world.
Biogas & food-waste pre-treatment
Depacking, crushing and preparing packaged food waste and organic feedstock into clean slurry for anaerobic digestion — plus drying and odour control for the digestate stage.
Learn more →Biomass & biofuel drying
Disc-dryer systems for wood, paper sludge and biomass, turning low-value residues into pellets, briquettes and fuel — recovering the energy that would otherwise be lost.
Learn more →Vegetable & alternative protein processing
Separation, dewatering and drying know-how applied to plant-based and emerging protein streams, helping producers recover high-value ingredients efficiently.
Learn more →Why operators choose Haarslev
Proven at the largest scale
From Copenhagen's Lynetten plant to the biggest incineration operations in China, our dryers handle the volumes municipal operators actually face — and keep handling them for decades.
One partner, whole line
Few companies can plan, build, integrate, commission and service a complete drying line in-house. We can - which means one accountable partner instead of a patchwork of suppliers.
Engineered for low energy and long life
Heat recovery, intelligent CORE process control and rugged, serviceable engineering keep running costs down and uptime up — the two numbers that decide whether a sludge operation pays for itself.