Resource conservation through land treatment of municipal wastewater

Abstract

Industrialization and urbanization have been causing tremendous pressure on the water resources. In turn, to maintain the pace of development, it has become necessary to search for alternative sources of water. Conventional wastewater-treatment technologies are cost-intensive and often pose financial constraint in developing countries. Therefore, considerable attention has been directed towards design and development of low-cost wastewater management technologies coupled with recycle and reuse benefits. High Rate Transpiration System (HRTS) is one such technology which can be implemented for domestic effluent disposal and reuse. This hypothesis was examined in field and laboratory experiments conducted by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI), Nagpur, India. This communication highlights the use of HRTS for the removal of pollutants like BOD, nitrogen and phosphorus from primary treated wastewater. The low-tech and low-cost wastewater treatment HRTS shows good performance for reduction of pollutants with minimal soil and plant contamination