Wastewater

For the lake in North West England, see Wast Water.

Wastewater treatment plant in Cuxhaven, Germany

Wastewater, also written as waste water, is any water that has been adversely affected in quality by anthropogenic influence. Wastewater can originate from a combination of domestic, industrial, commercial or agricultural activities, surface runoff or stormwater, and from sewer inflow or infiltration.

Municipal wastewater (also called sewage) is usually conveyed in a combined sewer or sanitary sewer, and treated at a wastewater treatment plant. Treated wastewater is discharged into receiving water via an effluent pipe. Wastewaters generated in areas without access to centralized sewer systems rely on on-site wastewater systems. These typically comprise a septic tank, drain field, and optionally an on-site treatment unit. The management of wastewater belongs to the overarching term sanitation, just like the management of human excreta, solid waste and stormwater (drainage).

Sewage is a type of wastewater that comprises domestic wastewater and is therefore contaminated with feces or urine from people's toilets, but the term sewage is also used to mean any type of wastewater. Sewerage is the physical infrastructure, including pipes, pumps, screens, channels etc. used to convey sewage from its origin to the point of eventual treatment or disposal.

Origin

Wastewater can come from (text in brackets indicates likely inclusions or contaminants):

• Human waste (feces, used toilet paper or wipes, urine, or other bodily fluids), also known as blackwater, usually from lavatories;
• Cesspit leakage;
• Septic tank discharge;
• Sewage treatment plant discharge;
• Washing water (personal, clothes, floors, dishes, etc.), also known as greywater or sullage;
• Rainfall collected on roofs, yards, hard-standings, etc. (generally clean with traces of oils and fuel);
• Groundwater infiltrated into sewage;
• Surplus manufactured liquids from domestic sources (drinks, cooking oil, pesticides, lubricating oil, paint, cleaning liquids, etc.);
• Urban rainfall runoff from roads, carparks, roofs, sidewalks/pavements (contains oils, animal feces, litter, gasoline/petrol, diesel or rubber residues, soapscum, metals from vehicle exhausts, etc.);
• Seawater ingress (high volumes of salt and microbes);
• Direct ingress of river water (high volumes of micro-biota);
• Direct ingress of manmade liquids (illegal disposal of pesticides, used oils, etc.);
• Highway drainage (oil, de-icing agents, rubber residues);
• Storm drains (almost anything, including cars, shopping trolleys, trees, cattle, etc.);
• Blackwater (contains feces, urine and flushwater from flush toilets);
• Industrial waste
• Industrial site drainage (silt, sand, alkali, oil, chemical residues);
  • Industrial cooling waters (biocides, heat, slimes, silt);
  • Industrial process waters;
  • Organic or biodegradable waste, including waste from abattoirs, creameries, and ice cream manufacture;
  • Organic or non bio-degradable/difficult-to-treat waste (pharmaceutical or pesticide manufacturing);
  • Extreme pH waste (from acid/alkali manufacturing, metal plating);
  • Toxic waste (metal plating, cyanide production, pesticide manufacturing, etc.);
  • Solids and emulsions (paper manufacturing, foodstuffs, lubricating and hydraulic oil manufacturing, etc.);
  • Agricultural drainage, direct and diffuse.
  • Hydraulic fracturing
  • Produced water from oil & natural gas production

Constituents

The composition of wastewater varies widely. This is a partial list of what it may contain:

• Water (more than 95 percent), which is often added during flushing to carry waste down a drain;
• Pathogens such as bacteria, viruses, prions and parasitic worms;
• Non-pathogenic bacteria;
• Organic particles such as feces, hairs, food, vomit, paper fibers, plant material, humus, etc.;
• Soluble organic material such as urea, fruit sugars, soluble proteins, drugs, pharmaceuticals, etc.;
• Inorganic particles such as sand, grit, metal particles, ceramics, etc.;
• Soluble inorganic material such as ammonia, road-salt, sea-salt, cyanide, hydrogen sulfide, thiocyanates, thiosulfates, etc.;
• Animals such as protozoa, insects, arthropods, small fish, etc.;
• Macro-solids such as sanitary napkins, nappies/diapers, condoms, needles, children's toys, dead animals or plants, etc.;
• Gases such as hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, methane, etc.;
• Emulsions such as paints, adhesives, mayonnaise, hair colorants, emulsified oils, etc.;
• Toxins such as pesticides, poisons, herbicides, etc.
• Pharmaceuticals and hormones and other hazardous substances

Quality indicators

Main article: Wastewater quality indicators

Any oxidizable material present in an aerobic natural waterway or in an industrial wastewater will be oxidized both by biochemical (bacterial) or chemical processes. The result is that the oxygen content of the water will be decreased. Basically, the reaction for biochemical oxidation may be written as:

Oxidizable material + bacteria + nutrient + O₂ → CO₂ + H₂O + oxidized inorganics such as NO₃⁻ or SO₄²⁻

Oxygen consumption by reducing chemicals such as sulfides and nitrites is typified as follows:

S²⁻ + 2 O₂ → SO₄²⁻

NO₂⁻ + ½ O₂ → NO₃⁻

Since all natural waterways contain bacteria and nutrients, almost any waste compounds introduced into such waterways will initiate biochemical reactions (such as shown above). Those biochemical reactions create what is measured in the laboratory as the biochemical oxygen demand (BOD). Such chemicals are also liable to be broken down using strong oxidizing agents and these chemical reactions create what is measured in the laboratory as the chemical oxygen demand (COD). Both the BOD and COD tests are a measure of the relative oxygen-depletion effect of a waste contaminant. Both have been widely adopted as a measure of pollution effect. The BOD test measures the oxygen demand of biodegradable pollutants whereas the COD test measures the oxygen demand of oxidizable pollutants.

The so-called 5-day BOD measures the amount of oxygen consumed by biochemical oxidation of waste contaminants in a 5-day period. The total amount of oxygen consumed when the biochemical reaction is allowed to proceed to completion is called the Ultimate BOD. Because the Ultimate BOD is so time consuming, the 5-day BOD has been almost universally adopted as a measure of relative pollution effect.

There are also many different COD tests of which the 4-hour COD is probably the most common.

There is no generalized correlation between the 5-day BOD and the ultimate BOD. Similarly there is no generalized correlation between BOD and COD. It is possible to develop such correlations for specific waste contaminants in a specific wastewater stream but such correlations cannot be generalized for use with any other waste contaminants or wastewater streams. This is because the composition of any wastewater stream is different. As an example an effluent consisting of a solution of simple sugars that might discharge from a confectionery factory is likely to have organic components that degrade very quickly. In such a case, the 5 day BOD and the ultimate BOD would be very similar since there would be very little organic material left after 5 days. However a final effluent of a sewage treatment works serving a large industrialised area might have a discharge where the ultimate BOD was much greater than the 5 day BOD because much of the easily degraded material would have been removed in the sewage treatment process and many industrial processes discharge difficult to degrade organic molecules.

The laboratory test procedures for the determining the above oxygen demands are detailed in many standard texts. American versions include the "Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater."

Disposal

Industrial wastewater effluent with neutralized pH from tailing runoff. Taken in Peru.

In some urban areas, municipal wastewater is carried separately in sanitary sewers and runoff from streets is carried in storm drains. Access to either of these is typically through a manhole. During high precipitation periods a combined sewer overflow can occur, forcing untreated sewage to flow back into the environment. This can pose a serious threat to public health and the surrounding environment.

Sewage may drain directly into major watersheds with minimal or no treatment. When untreated, sewage can have serious impacts on the quality of an environment and on the health of people. Pathogens can cause a variety of illnesses. Some chemicals pose risks even at very low concentrations and can remain a threat for long periods of time because of bioaccumulation in animal or human tissue.

Treatment

Main article: Wastewater treatment

There are numerous processes that can be used to clean up wastewaters depending on the type and extent of contamination. Wastewater can be treated in wastewater treatment plants which include physical, chemical and biological treatment processes. Municipal wastewater is treated in sewage treatment plants (which may also be referred to as wastewater treatment plants). Agricultural wastewater may be treated in agricultural wastewater treatment processes, whereas industrial wastewater is treated in industrial wastewater treatment processes.

For municipal wastewater the use of septic tanks and other On-Site Sewage Facilities (OSSF) is widespread in some rural areas, for example serving up to 20 percent of the homes in the U.S.

One type of aerobic treatment system is the activated sludge process, based on the maintenance and recirculation of a complex biomass composed of micro-organisms able to absorb and adsorb the organic matter carried in the wastewater. Anaerobic wastewater treatment processes (UASB, EGSB) are also widely applied in the treatment of industrial wastewaters and biological sludge. Some wastewater may be highly treated and reused as reclaimed water. Constructed wetlands are also being used.

Reuse

Main article: Reclaimed water

Treated wastewater can be reused as drinking water, in industry (for example in cooling towers), in artificial recharge of aquifers, in agriculture and in the rehabilitation of natural ecosystems (for example in Florida's Everglades).

Reuse in gardening and agriculture

Main article: Reuse of excreta

There are benefits of using recycled water for irrigation, including the lower cost compared to some other sources and consistency of supply regardless of season, climatic conditions and associated water restrictions. Irrigation with recycled wastewater can also serve to fertilize plants if it contains nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

Around 90% of wastewater produced globally remains untreated, causing widespread water pollution, especially in low-income countries. Increasingly, agriculture is using untreated wastewater for irrigation. Cities provide lucrative markets for fresh produce, so are attractive to farmers. However, because agriculture has to compete for increasingly scarce water resources with industry and municipal users, there is often no alternative for farmers but to use water polluted with urban waste directly to water their crops.

Health risks of polluted irrigation water

There can be significant health hazards related to using untreated wastewater in agriculture. Wastewater from cities can contain a mixture of chemical and biological pollutants. In low-income countries, there are often high levels of pathogens from excreta, while in emerging nations, where industrial development is outpacing environmental regulation, there are increasing risks from inorganic and organic chemicals. The World Health Organization, in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), has developed guidelines for safe use of wastewater in 2006. These guidelines advocate a ‘multiple-barrier’ approach to wastewater use, for example by encouraging farmers to adopt various risk-reducing behaviours. These include ceasing irrigation a few days before harvesting to allow pathogens to die off in the sunlight, applying water carefully so it does not contaminate leaves likely to be eaten raw, cleaning vegetables with disinfectant or allowing fecal sludge used in farming to dry before being used as a human manure.

Etymology

The words "sewage" and "sewer" came from Old French essouier = "to drain", which came from Latin exaquāre. Their formal Latin antecedents are exaquāticum and exaquārium.

Legislation

European Union

Main article: Directive on Urban Waste Water Treatment

Council Directive 91/271/EEC on Urban Wastewater Treatment was adopted on 21 May 1991, amended by the Commission Directive 98/15/EC. Commission Decision 93/481/EEC defines the information that Member States should provide the Commission on the state of implementation of the Directive.

United States

The Clean Water Act is the primary federal law in the United States governing water pollution.

See also

• List of waste-water treatment technologies
• Waste management
• Water management
• Water pollution