Wastewater management involves treating wastewater for recycling or environmentally friendly disposal. Major cities face overflow and pollution issues due to increasing population density. Mechanical and biological processes are used for treatment, including primary, secondary, and tertiary processing. Graywater can be filtered and reused for non-potable purposes, reducing water waste and sewage system workload.
Waste water management is the field of managing wastewater to make it suitable for recycling into a water system or for disposal in an environmentally friendly way. This is one of the biggest problems facing most major cities of the modern world, with overflow causing severe pollution problems and increasing population density driving existing infrastructure to breaking point. Both mechanical and biological processes are used to manage wastewater to eliminate unwanted particulate matter and to eliminate any potentially harmful pathogens.
One of the major sectors of water waste management is wastewater treatment. This covers domestic wastewater, commercial runoff, environmental runoff and more. Households produce sewage as waste from their toilets, showers, sinks and bathrooms, which is generally pumped to a leech field on the premises, or sent into a central sewage system. Industrial wastewater can be particularly dangerous, often with harmful pollutants added to the water and introduced into the sewage system. In some regions, this wastewater is specially regulated and may require a special facility to be treated.
A substantial problem in modern management has arisen as existing sewage systems are filled to near capacity. Many modern cities allow storm runoff to seep directly into the sewer system, which adds stress to an already stretched system. As a result, during particularly heavy or long-lasting storms, rainwater can cause the sewer system to exceed its capacity, creating what is called a combined sewer overflow, which can create disorder both within the city on the coast.
Wastewater in a large city is usually treated at a central plant, where it is sent by a large series of pipes and pumps. Most management systems have three distinct levels, simply referred to as primary, secondary and tertiary processing. Primary treatment involves the separation of solids from water, usually by mechanical means such as settling and filtration. Secondary treatment involves the use of biological means, such as microorganisms, to bring the dissolved material out of solution and into a solid form. Tertiary treatment then involves removing these solids from the water and treating the resulting water to purify it, usually by microfiltration or chemical additives.
On an individual level, waste water management can be used by households that are not on a sewage system or by households who wish to reduce the amount of waste they pump into a sewer system. In recent years, many regions have allowed the separation of wastewater into gray and black water. Greywater is the relatively pristine water that results from activities such as doing laundry, showering, or washing dishes. Blackwater, on the other hand, is the sewage from sanitation systems.
While black water must, by law in most regions, be sent to a sewage system or leech field, gray water is less regulated. Many modern homes use basic filtration systems to make it suitable for a variety of water-intensive activities that don’t require potable water. For example, people may use gray water to water their gardens or landscaping, or to fill toilet cisterns for flushing. This is a simple and effective form of water waste management that can save large amounts of water each year, as well as reduce the workload on sewage systems.
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