Wastewater Treatment Principles and Regulations

Water is an essential aspect of life for all individuals. Due to this, it is becoming necessary to better manage water treatment and water management matters. Wastewater disposal processes have been constantly improved to provide better water quality to the public. Increased costs and diminishing water resources have also forced the public to adopt a better wastewater disposal method at all times. Homes, industries, factories etc. mostly pollute the water in their needs, and this water must be treated before it is released back into the environment.

Although most of the time, nature intoxicates water by itself, but due to the immense population and expansion of industries, it is essential for the people to act for the betterment of water resources. Water is also essential for the wildlife, as many fishes can only inhabit inside clean water. Several other animals also rely on river and lake water for their needs.

Wastewater Treatment

Wastewater Treatment is an essential procedure, which must be performed to better balance the environment. Wastewater treatment includes the process of removing unwanted large and small solids from the water. This process is term as effluent, and it is important as if the solid is remains there, it can potentially harm the ecosystem of the marine life. It can utilize the precious oxygen on which several animals rely on. A number of methods, such as physical, biological and chemical methods, can be practiced for removing unwanted particles or solids from the water.

In most cases, a number of different methods are combined in order to fully remove any sort of contaminates from the wastewater. The wastewater treatment procedure is basically divided into three stages, which are primary, secondary and tertiary waste water treatments, which are used for removing majority of the unwanted particles.

Primary Wastewater Treatment

The stream of water flows into the primary treatment process. This process includes clarification by floating, clarification by settling and physio-chemical treatment. Solids or containments, which are removed during this process are sent for sludge dewatering, sludge thickening and then final disposal. The stream of water then exits the primary wastewater treatment and enters the secondary treatment.

Secondary Wastewater Treatment

This can be said the most important process in the wastewater treatment. It is also the most complex process out of all the processes, and can consist of several procedures and equipment to filter the contaminants from the water. Some of these can include trickling filters, rotating biological contractors, anaerobic biological reactors, membrane bioreactors etc. Just like in primary process, the solids are sent to sludge dewatering, sludge thickening and then final disposal. The water stream then may get recycled to primary water treatment or may go to tertiary water treatment.

Tertiary Water Treatment

Tertiary Wastewater Treatment usually reduces nitrogen, phosphorus, COD, BOD and solids for discharge or recycling use. Depending on the prior treatment methods, this level of treatment may not be require at all or it may need very sophisticated equipment to remove the unwanted particles.  This equipment can be very advanced and expensive.