Thread: sustainability on decentralized wastewater treatment

Hi everyone! I have planned to do my master thesis in the sustainability of decentrailzed wastewater treatment.
I would like to get many more idea and thoughts. Now, I am just reviewing the literature, and I would wonder if you could share me with the points that are interesting or any knowledges on that. Thanks all!

wetlands

Decentralizing the treatment of mass quantities of billions of gallons of raw sewage is not feasible. You would have to relocate homes so that each community could take care of itself and not need a city size treatment plant but new developments don't do that today as yet.

Have a look at Common Effluent Drainage systems referred to in this report at page 65.
http://www.yvw.com.au/yvw/groups/pub...yvw1001676.pdf

And here's another with emphasis on treatment plants.
Effluent Treatment Plants,Common Effluent Treatment Plants,effluent treatment plant machineries

There are references to other systems in both of these, so you have a reasonable starting point.

Thanks all!

Yes, wetland is a good, simple method. But there are many unsustainability in the constructed wetland.

Yes, it is somehow true that decentralization is not feasible for mass treatment. But here in the case of developing countries, we don't even have sewage system in many places. And decentralization is the best option. And what I am trying to do my thesis is the finding the factors on the sustainability of decentralized wastewater treatment according to local needed.

I wonder sometimes if we could treat waste more efficiently by seperate streams of waste for gray water versus black water. Also would things be more efficient if products, particularly liquids, were manufactured with waste disposal in mind.

Originally Posted by Lynx_Fox

Also would things be more efficient if products, particularly liquids, were manufactured with waste disposal in mind.

This was essentially my master's thesis. At the time, there wasn't a large amount of publicity around plastic beads in exfoliating body wash, for instance. Thanks for bringing up this point. Most companies resist thinking of their product as waste, but it will inevitably become so.

I wonder sometimes if we could treat waste more efficiently by seperate streams of waste for gray water versus black water. Also would things be more efficient if products, particularly liquids, were manufactured with waste disposal in mind.

I'm more interested in keeping industrial waste out of sewage systems. Eventually we will need to reclaim the phosphorus we're currently polluting rivers and oceans with in our sewage outfalls, but we can't use much if any of the chemicals or solids from sewage processing as crop fertiliser because of the contamination by metals and other substances. It is used to some extent here for parklands and sports fields.

As for separating grey and black water, I'd think that should be separated at the household / structure point. I'm currently organising our kitchen and laundry waste to go into a holding/filter system for garden watering. It's just luck that our house is situated as it is that that will be really, really easy (and cheap) to do. Heaven alone knows how you'd do that for a multi-storey block of apartments as a retro-fit - easy enough to do at the design/building stage.

I am wondering if anyone could share me any case study or reading on sustainability science and decentralized wastewater treatment.

Dear all,

Although I was keeping my track on decentralized management system for my thesis, I have found out that the language difficulty to get the data and I am shifting my thought to do research on fecal sludge mangement by using solar (for my current master thesis) as I have previous a few experience in solar dryer construction(as a thesis of my first master). I would wonder if anyone could advice me on that.

Su Suxx

Originally Posted by adelady

.....I'm more interested in keeping industrial waste out of sewage systems. ......

Why is no one addressing a problem destined to possibly become as salient as unpolluted freshwater: the hormone-mimicking chemicals now found virtually everywhere, and within everyone?

No interest? Unawareness? It is my firm belief this underlies several serious human maladies already, not even considering future generations. jocular

Trust me, people are addressing MANY issues related to water. Just because you don't here about it regularly on this sub forum doesn't mean it is written off in the real world.

I would appreciate if any one could provide me any suggestions, ideas, and advices on the fecal sludge management by solar drying.
Somehow, Fecal sludge management is also a very important issues in our developing world as the wastewater treatment is. Because, for example, in my country, we don't even have wastewater treatment plant in many cities, the septic tank and pit laterin are used widely.

As I am doing my degree in Thailand, and I don't speak Thai, so this is a big problem for me to collect the data for my first tentative topic "finding sustainable factors in decentralized wastewater treatment." to finish degree within the limited time duration.