Municipal wastewater reclamation: where do we stand? An overview of treatment technology and management practice

Abstract

Water reclamation implementation and management practices at municipal wastewater treatment plants throughout the world are reviewed and some implementation and operational issues are defined. The information is based on a conventional literature survey, on an in depth survey study of European, Israeli and Australian medium and large-scale water reclamation utilities and on the findings of a dedicated international workshop. The review identified over 3,300 water reclamation projects and designed the map of the main process technologies and their fields of product water application. The main conclusion of the enquiry is that the technological risks no longer represent a major concern for the development of water reclamation projects, rather issues such as the financing, failure management and social acceptance have become more critical.

What Germany’s University Beginners Think about Water Reuse

“…The problem here is that the public is told that drinking water is the best controlled food in Germany, which is correct, but at the same time this fact may support the feeling that a change to using recycled water is unnecessary and that the unfamiliar system may have flaws. However, only a few people know that in many European urban areas, water cycles actually include the uncontrolled reuse of wastewater [15,30]. Information made available by waterworks and sewage plants to the public in Germany said that their tap water is perfectly clean of everything.…”

“…Additionally, people wondered what had suddenly caused bacteria to appear in their drinking water, although nothing had happened to it, and only the information had been adapted (informal information from public outreach guide, BWB, Berlin). Bixio and colleagues [7,15] also concluded that the provision of new information may lead to lower acceptance from the public due to the high emotive load of the topic.…”

“…However, public acceptance of such procedures remains limited [9,14]. Although modern wastewater treatment technologies can turn wastewater into recycled water of a better quality than existing potable water standards [15,16], without public acceptance, an introduction of recycled water may fail [17][18][19]. Binz and colleagues state that introducing a new technology depends on how much it contradicts established worldviews [17].…”

Evaluation of MF and UF as pretreatments prior to RO applied to reclaim municipal wastewater for freshwater substitution in a paper mill: A practical experience

“…The use of reclaimed water has been already reported some decades ago and nowadays it represents a promising expanding market [6]. However, most of this reclaimed water is still used in agricultural and urban applications [6].…”

“…However, most of this reclaimed water is still used in agricultural and urban applications [6]. In fact, only a low percentage of the total reclaimed water is nowadays used for industrial purposes, where it is mainly (> 50%) used as cooling water [7].…”