TITLE:
How Sustainable Is Our Wastewater Treatment?
AUTHORS:
Stig Morling
KEYWORDS:
Nitrogen, Nitrification, Phosphorus, Sanitation, Sustainability, Wetland
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Water Resource and Protection,
Vol.6 No.12,
September
4,
2014
ABSTRACT: The sanitation and environmental problems related to human activities can be traced at least around 2 500 years back, with written evidences both in the Old Testimony and the Greek culture. Thus in this perspective the matter is by convention an acknowledged problem since long. On the other hand our modern treatment systems of wastewater have far more recent roots. As an example, this year the very widespread biological treatment based on activated sludge celebrates it 100 year anniversary. In this perspective we may see a fundamental need to discuss and scrutinize the current systems in a “sustainable” perspective. A challenge for the technical society is to provide some “quantified” criteria on the concept sustainability. The wastewater treatment systems as we know them and develop them may be addressed by applying four major “sustainability” criteria: 1) The sustainability from major sanitation viewpoints; 2) The sustainability from environmental viewpoints; 3) The financial sustainability for the technical systems; (4) The sustainability with respect to adopting the systems into a more or less consistently changing society.