CleanEdge BOOT Wastewater Treatment and ZLD

CleanEdge Resources is a Singapore-headquartered company, founded in 2020, that finances, builds, owns and operates water and waste-to-energy infrastructure for industry. Its Imagine H2O Asia Cohort 3 entry was CleanEdge Water, and the old cleanedgewater.com domain now redirects to the group. In 2022 it acquired India's Lars Enviro, active since 1997, and it has a Philippines subsidiary, CleanEdge Resources Philippines Inc.

Its wastewater offering combines pre-treatment, anaerobic digestion that turns high-strength organics into biogas, aerobic processes such as activated sludge, MBBR, MBR and SBR, filtration, and zero liquid discharge using MVR and TVR multi-effect evaporators with drying and salt separation. Plants can be delivered under long-term build-own-operate-transfer contracts in which CleanEdge funds, designs, builds and runs the asset. Industries served include breweries, dairy, distilleries, food and beverage, mining and metals, palm oil and sugar, with clients such as Hindustan Zinc and Shree Renuka Sugars.

• Anaerobic treatment: in-house and European partner technologies convert high-strength organics into biogas, with 350+ digesters installed globally.
• Aerobic treatment: activated sludge, MBBR, MBR and SBR configured per project.
• Zero liquid discharge: MVR and TVR multi-effect evaporators with drying and salt separation units.
• Resource recovery: recovery of reusable materials from industrial waste streams, including mining.
• Waste to energy: biogas and compressed biogas plants across the value chain.
• BOOT delivery: long-term contracts where CleanEdge funds, designs, builds, owns and operates the plant.

Breweries, dairies and seafood processors in Vietnam can outsource anaerobic treatment that turns effluent into biogas for boilers. Sugar mills and distilleries can adopt ZLD under a BOOT contract to meet discharge limits without upfront capital. Mining and metal processing sites can recover water and resources from process effluent.

Under BOOT contracts the industrial client avoids upfront capital, while CleanEdge funds, builds and operates the plant. The Hindustan Zinc ZLD plant treats 4 million litres per day and recovers up to 3.8 million litres daily, which the company says saves over 1.3 billion litres of water a year. Anaerobic digestion converts organic load into biogas, offsetting energy costs, and ZLD designs are tailored to water chemistry for lower footprint and life cycle cost.

Industries in Asia face stricter discharge rules, water scarcity and decarbonisation targets at the same time, while many lack capital or skills to run complex treatment plants. Outsourced build-own-operate models that bundle water recovery, ZLD and biogas are gaining ground, particularly for food processing, palm oil, sugar and mining in Southeast Asia and India.

CleanEdge Resources was founded in 2020 and is headquartered in Singapore. It acquired Lars Enviro Pvt Ltd (founded 1997) in 2022 and operates CleanEdge Resources Philippines Inc. In January 2024 responsAbility invested USD 20 million. In 2025 it inaugurated a 4 MLD ZLD plant at Hindustan Zinc's Rampura Agucha mine and secured INR 600 million from Tata Capital for its first BOOT ZLD plant.