Wastewater treatment is a factor that every Indian need to understand and utilize!
Water pollution and water shortage are both acute issues in India. currently, around 70% of India’s water resources are contaminated and many major rivers dying from pollution. At the same time, India is witnessing one of the highest rates of drawing groundwater, and 256 of 700 districts in India are witnessing a critical water shortage.
The treatment and reuse of wastewater or sewage water is an urgent need for every residential and commercial facility in the country. Understanding the exact nature of wastewater and the multiple ways to process it will enable each one of us to choose the best-suited wastewater treatment system for our residential or commercial facilities.
Here are the simple and easy answers to FAQs on key aspects of wastewater treatment
Why treat wastewater?
Improving water availability
A majority of the water used in domestic as well as industrial applications does not actually need to be of drinking quality. For instance, water required for cleaning floors or roads, flushing toilets, or watering the garden could be of a non-drinkable standard. At a time when freshwater shortage looms large, reusing treated sewage water fish such applications could save considerable costs, as well as precious water resources and improve water availability.
Reutilizing sewage water can reduce freshwater requirements by around 50%-60%.
Environmental compliance
Discharging untreated sewage into freshwater bodies can harm aquatic life. Non-compliance with water quality norms could attract fines and negatively impact the reputation of the business.
Treating wastewater is an urgent need for businesses from the viewpoint of environmental compliance as well as cost-saving.
How is the wastewater treated?
Wastewater is classified into two types
Sullage: The wastewater from activities such as washing, bathing, cooking is contains vegetable matter, oils, dirt, soap, and oils that have been washed from the human body. This water is called sullege or greywater
Sewage: Water used to flush toilets contains faces. It is referred to as sewage or black water.
Sullege is lighter and easier to treat than sewage. However constructing separate tanks for sewage and sullage would increase costs and occupy real estate. Hence, both are misted and treated together to save costs.
A sewage treatment plat puts water through 5 stages of filtration
- Verticle bars: Remove large materials such as plastic or paper
- Grit chamber: Filters small heavy materials such as pebbles and soil
- Settling tank: Filters solid waste such as human excreta
- Aeration basin: Decomposes and removes the biological waste in water
- Clarifiers: The final stage of filtration
- Disinfection : Removes bacteria and microbes
Explore the details of water filtration on our blog How Water Treatment Plant Works
What are the different types of water treatment systems?
MBR( Membrane bioreactor system): This system biological decomposition with membrane-based separation of the harmful matter in water. This type of system can be entirely automated and features a compact design. It is becoming very popular in India as it is not very sensitive to fluctuations in the input load which is common in India.
Reed Bed Sewage Treatment: This treatment system uses natural factors to treat water. The sewage is allowed to flow into a water body where specific plants are planted. These plants absorb atmospheric oxygen and let it out from their roots, feeding the bacteria that decompose biological matter in the water. This oxygen feeds the microbes that clean the sewage. This system requires no electricity and depends on gravity to make the sewage flow. However, it does need a large area to set up.
DEWATS (Decentralised Water Treatment System): This system filters out the pollutants using aerobic and anaerobic treatment. The DEWATS system can provide methane gas for cooking. It is s low-cost system which requires no operator intervention. However, water treated with DEWATS requires additional tertiary treatment. Hence, the system comes with such added equipment which needs an operator.
What is the difference between aerobic and anaerobic treatment processes?
Aerobic process uses microbes that require oxygen to multiply and work. Anaerobic process uses microbes that do not need air to thrive. These are the bacteria that produce methane and thus are called methanogens.
An STP will generally combine both aerobic and anaerobic processes.
When the wastewater has a high BOD and COD, the anerobic system will reduce the BOD and COD count so that the aerobic system located further downstream can process the sludge easily. Next, the sludge will flow onward to tertiary treatment.
Where should an STP be located?
When setting up an ultrafiltration system, business establishments are essentially spending a part of their precious real estate.
Having to yield a high space for STP will increase the STP costs and render a vast part of the land unusable.
If the STP is bigger, the lack of space could prevent users from installing it.
Inovar STP systems are characterized by highly efficient advanced technology and a low footprint. We also offer fully mobile packaged STPs which operate efficiently in areas with space constraints.