Characterization of Sediments From the Sewage Disposal Lagoons for Sustainable Development

Abstract

The incessant growth in urbanization, and the population explosion associated with it, has resulted in an increased discharge in sewage disposal lagoons and has led to their overloading. This results in the improper functioning of these lagoons, which greatly affects the treatment of sludge and wastewater. The influents, which carry along with them a huge load of substance, referred to as socioeconomically generated sediments (SeGSs), substantially reduce the capacity of the lagoons and the retention time of the sewage water and sludge. This situation poses a major challenge to municipal engineers and town planners, and to overcome it, either periodic or once-per-lifetime desiltation of these lagoons is warranted. However, in present-day megacities, there are several concerns associated with the desiltation process, viz., selection of the most economical and efficient technique, the availability of dumping ground(s), and transportation of the SeGSs to these dumping grounds. This is where utilization of SeGSs as a manmade resource could be a good initiative towards sustainable development. However, this endeavor entails a holistic understanding of the SeGSs by conducting detailed investigations to characterize them based on their physical, chemical, morphological, and microbial attributes before postulating a strategy for their sustainable utilization. With this in view, extensive sampling of the SeGSs from sewage disposal lagoons located in the western part of India was conducted followed by their very comprehensive characterization. Details of the methodologies adopted for this exercise were presented in this manuscript, and recommendations were made to utilize SeGSs for sustainable development in the most efficient manner.

Post Covid-19 water and waste water management to protect public health and geoenvironment

“…The The biosolid by-products of WWTP processes contain various pathogenic microorganisms, bacteriophages and human viruses (Pepper et al, 2006;Sharma et al, 2016). Some typical pathogens that have been seen to transfer from biosolids to the geoenvironment are bacteria, enteric viruses and helminths.…”

Towards the Implementation of Circular Economy in the Wastewater Sector: Challenges and Opportunities

“…Sewage sludge is composed of significant amounts of nutrients, such as phosphorus (0.5%-0.7% of total solids) and nitrogen (2.4%-5% of total solids), in the form of protein compounds, which can be employed to produce fertilisers [140][141][142]. Taking into account that phosphorus is a finite resource extracted mainly from rocks located in a few regions of the world, and the high cost of commercial fertilizers, the recovery of nutrients from sewage systems is gaining attention to improve sustainability in agricultural production [112].…”

Programmable logic controller-based automatic control for municipal wastewater treatment plant optimization

“…As economies develop, the scale of industrial production expands and large amounts of industrial wastewater are produced (Kaczor et al 2015). If the wastewater is discharged directly, pollutants will pollute other areas in the process of the natural water cycle (Sharma et al 2016). Agricultural products that grow in polluted water can enrich the pollution, and the pollutants could eventually enter the human body through the food chain, with adverse effects on human health (Culhane et al 2019).…”