“New challenges for small wastewater treatment plants”

Journal of World Water, 1995

Helge Brattebø
University of Trondheim

There is a growing interest for improvements in design and operation of small

wastewater treatment plants. This article comments some important lines in the
need for such treatment and in the work of improving small wastewater treatment
concepts and technologies.

INTRODUCTION
Safe wastewater treatment methods have always been a challenge to the society. During the
last 50 years, pollution abatement measures have been given high priority, particularly
discharges from the growing urban areas. Early objectives were to reduce the emissions of
organic matter and pathogens, while other objectives related to the emission of heavy metals
and nutrients (phosphorous and nitrogen) have been more focused during recent years. This
pattern of pollution control objectives has of course led to the development of yield- and cost-
efficient urban treatment technologies, using various process concepts.

Parallel to this development, there has been a more silent, but on the other hand equally
important, process of improving treatment concepts and technologies for rural areas and small
wastewater treatment plants (Small WWTP). One may say that such improvements have been
somewhat postponed due to a high pollution control priority for urban areas and larger cities.
However, the interest for efficient wastewater treatment methods in rural areas is today
significant, and rapidly increasing, in most countries around the world. Such methods include
both sewage treatment for single houses and from villages. They also include different
treatment philosophies and concepts.

APPROPRIATE TREATMENT CONCEPTS

In general, sewage from single houses is treated by use of nature-based concepts (infiltration
and soil systems, reed beds, ponds and constructed wetlands), but in the case of marginal
climate, hydrogeology or land availability, new types of mini-package plants are being
developed to meet strict emission requirements. These are all solutions "on-site". Sewage from
villages was traditionally treated by use of various soil or pond systems, and these are still the
main methods on the countryside worldwide, particularly in developing countries. Most
western countries have strict regulations, or increasing ambitions, for wastewater discharge
from villages and small WWTP, combined with a general driving force for "high-tech"
solutions in the society, and limited availability to inexpensive land. These factors have
stimulated a rigorous development of new process concepts, and a wide spectre of package
plants, for such applications during the last 10-20 years.

The European "Urban Wastewater Directive" 91/271/EEC states that all agglomerations with
less than 2000 p.e., equipped with wastewater collecting systems, have to adopt appropriate
wastewater treatment by the end of year 2005.

I have to focus two points here. First, the term "appropriate" refers to the impact on the
receiving water body, i.e. the wastewater treatment level shall be chosen according to the
sensitivity of the recipient. This means that authorities are open to different solutions, at
different levels, in the case of design or upgrading of small plants. It is not correct to speak
about good or poor treatment concepts for such applications, in terms of treatment efficiency,
as one should only consider appropriateness with respect to the recipient. On the other hand,
different concepts may have benefits or weaknesses in function and operation, which must be
taken into consideration.

Second, one may ask which level of treatment standard will be required in practise. Personally,
I think the choice of rural or small treatment plant methods will have to be based on the
traditions and philosophies of sewage treatment of the individual countries, but in general one
may assume that small WWTP in future will have to purify up to a standard that is typical of
conventional secondary treatment.

In very many cases, e.g. at marginal local conditions, this will create a need for improving
existing treatment methods or treatment practise. So there is definitely a need for more focus
on the international research, training and technology transfer in this area. The International
Association on Water Quality (IAWQ) has met this need by launching its Specialist Group on
Design and Operation of Small Wastewater Treatment Plants in 1989. Today, the group has
about 250 individual or corporate members from 50 countries worldwide.

PRESENT SITUATION IN SOME EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

As mentioned above, the European Directive will require a large rural WWTP construction
and upgrading activity during the next 10 years. It may be of interest to take a closer look at
the present situation within selected European countries:

Italy has about 4050 plants of size up to 5000 p.e. /1/, out of which 2250 plants are < 1000
p.e. and 3500 plants were constructed after 1981. Biological plants dominate, particularly the
activated sludge (AS) systems without primary settling (58% of all plants). A common
practise is oriented to extended aeration and low-loading with separate aerobic sludge
digestion. Many plants also have primary treatment only (21,5%). It is estimated a need to
build about 1000 new plants of size < 2000 p.e. Stabilization ponds are not common in Italy,
as in many other European countries, mainly due to land availability and groundwater
pollution reasons. New rotating biological contactor (RBC) concepts are considered with
interest, due to low energy and maintenance requirements. The major problems of AS plants
are sludge bulking and sludge loss.

France has about 7200 small treatment plants of size up to 2500 p.e. /1/, out of which 3250
plants < 500 p.e. and 5200 plants < 1000 p.e. As in Italy, most plants (57%) are AS systems.
However, in France there are not many plants with primary treatment only, and there are quite
a lot of plants with trickling filters (14,5%) and particularly lagoon concepts (21,9%). All
those plants serve about 8 millions p.e., but there is still a need for many new plants.

Lagoon concepts are popular, particularly in some regions of France, with running costs of
about 20% of a conventional system. Process efficiency and nitrification/denitrification favours
AS systems, but these have drawbacks related to high running costs, sensitive operation
management, significant sludge volumes and problems, and a large impact of hydraulic inlet
variations, often due to poor sewer systems. Trickling filters and RBC systems are loosing
their interest in France. There is an increasing interest for chemical treatment concepts,
particularly in the coastal and touristic mountainous areas, but these plants are normally larger
ones.

Norway mainly had septic tank systems, a few pond systems, and sewer systems with simple
mechanical treatment, in the rural areas up to 1970. The government started a large action
programme in the 70's, and many treatment plants were built to meet new emission
regulations. For single houses and groups of up to 7 houses, the soil systems (infiltration or
sand filter trenches) were built in large numbers, but very often those plants failed one way or
the other during few years of operation, e.g. due to climate, marginal hydrogeological
locations, poor design knowledge and construction faults.

In parallel to this process, quite a few conventional treatment plants (AS systems with or
without chemical (simultaneous) precipitation, RBC systems and even pure
mechanical/chemical plants) were built, and with time improved for small plant applications.
Today, chemical plants are much used in Norway, and they are among the best in the world,
even for small plants, with BOD efficiencies more or less equal to those of biological systems
/2/.

As those systems won confidence, the interest for ponds, septic tanks and soil systems lost
interest simply because their yield efficiency was not satisfactory. During the last few years,
however, the focus to nature-based systems are increasing, mainly due to reduced costs and
the fact that such systems represent a more ecological friendly treatment philosophy. Such
systems are open soil infiltration plants, constructed wetlands and modern pond systems.
Some of them are very promising, also under quite tough winter conditions /3/. In general,
however, the wastewater business is sceptic to such concepts, unless the local conditions are
extremely well suited to the application of nature-based treatment concepts.

In order to solve the pollution problems for single houses or small groups of houses, the
Norwegian environmental authorities in the 80's decided to stimulate research and technology
innovation on "mini-package" plants, for plants serving less than 35 persons. This was linked
to an official approval system /4/ for such plants, based on 3 different approval classes (BOD
and Tot-P removal, BOD only, or Tot-P only) and an independent "real-life" comprehensive
demo-testing for six months. There is also a service agreement as part of the sales contract.
These initiatives have been very successful, and today there are more than 2000 such plants in
operation. The most promising concept is now also available as a modular system for larger
plants.

THE BOUNDARY CONDITIONS

The special boundary conditions of small WWTP are very important, e.g. extreme flow
fluctuations, highly concentrated domestic sewage and extreme load variations, lack of skilled
plant operators, and the need for low construction and operation costs. Such conditions
demand special attention in choice of concept, and in process design and operation. Use of
equalization measures upstream to high rate processes is very beneficial, as use of low rate
biological processes with a high reserve capacity to treat peak loads, in rural areas where
space is available. The costs of small WWTP and on-site solutions must be compared to the
alternative of enlarging the sewage collection system of larger treatment plants in the district.
Individual solutions may not be given priority before the total costs are at least 15-20% lower
than collection systems, due to general features of larger plants such as better performance,
operation, control, and centralized sludge handling /5/. The capital costs for comparable
concepts of small WWTP may vary remarkably in different countries. However, common to all
per capita cost evaluations is the dramatic increase for plants below a size of about 200 p.e.

THE TREATMENT CONCEPTS

The treatment concepts may be classified according to the treatment level / purification
ambition, or according to basic groups of treatment method / technology.

There are 6 important groups of treatment level: partial treatment (pre-treatment); Physico-
chemical treatment; full BOD-removal; BOD including P-removal; BOD including
nitrification; and BOD including denitrification. BOD-removing groups are by far the most
important ones, where biochemical oxidation to a great extent determines size and costs of the
treatment system. The oxidation process may be high-rate or low-rate. Low-rate concepts are
still very popular, but high-rate concepts are taking over in most western countries.

The basic treatment methods / technologies may be divided into 2 large groups: "low-tech"
and "high-tech" concepts. The term "low-tech" does not at all indicate that such concepts have
low efficiency or performance, however, such plants are low in energy and technology
consumption, both in the construction and operating phases. In general such concepts make
use of nature-based treatment. Common concepts are ponds and lagoons, and various soil
infiltration systems /6-9/. During recent years, new classes of low-tech concepts have proved
to be most interesting, i.e. the classes of modern water hyacinth systems, the reed beds
systems with or without post-treatment in ponds or constructed wetlands /10-12/.

"High-tech" concepts represent the contrary to low-tech systems, because the plants may be
quite complicated both in use of construction materials, equipment and control regulators, and
very often also in total costs. There are several classes of high-tech concepts, based on
mechanical/biological schemes, mechanical/chemical schemes and
mechanical/biological/chemical schemes. There is no doubt that the present international focus
is on improving various mechanical/biological schemes, with or without chemicals added. I
will concentrate on such technologies in the last part of this article.

Conventional treatment was done by activated sludge (AS) systems, i.e. a suspended biomass
concept in various types of design, or by trickling filter systems, i.e. a biofilm concept based
on percolation through a carrier material filter (often stone). The conventional AS systems are
still important, but improvements are being developed as multistage AS systems and as
sequence batch reactor (SBR) systems, both capable of an efficient removal of BOD,
nitrification/denitrification, as well as biological phosphorous removal, under proper design
and operating conditions. The conventional trickling filter systems are not that popular any
more. The present trend is to apply modern high specific biofilm area biofilters (often as a
submerged filter) and modern rotating biological contactors (RBC), particularly for high-rate
applications, where both aerobic and anoxic process steps may be used in order to achieve
efficient nitrification/denitrification. Another new scheme is the moving bed system, which
combines the suspended biomass and biofilm concepts in a very flexible way, well suited for
high-rate and simple design applications.

Multistage AS systems (like Badenpho process) are complicated in design and operation, and
are not particularly suited for small WWTP conditions. However, such processes are very
promising in terms of high removal of nitrogen and phosphorus /13/, and have been introduced
for small WWTP applications at quite tough loading conditions /14/.

On the other hand, there is an enormous interest for sequencing batch reactor (SBR) systems
around the world at present, particularly for small WWTP applications. This was also
demonstrated at the IAWQ 1993 small WWTP conference in Trondheim, Norway /15-19/.
The benefits of such systems for small WWTP applications are many: Simple design and
construction; high inlet variations efficiently countermeasured by the batch-wise operating
principle; efficient nitrogen and phosphorous removal; appropriate to very small plants; simple
and easy control and operation, etc. Japanese experiences also show that the SBR concept is
well suited for upgrading of existing plants /20/.

The moving bed biofilm concept is new. Such a system is developed in Norway at present, and
is carefully examined at laboratory scale /21/ and tested at full scale small WWTP conditions
at very high loads /22/. The process involves a continuous, non-cloggable biofilm reactor with
a minimum of head-loss and a high specific biofilm surface per unit volume.The biofilm carrier
is small polyethylene plastic elements inside a stirred or aerated tank. The system is indeed
very flexible to variations in size, geometry, and inlet loads of a treatment plant, and should
easily be used for upgrading of existing small WWTP. The process may work at both aerobic
and anoxic conditions, so that the concept may be applicable to most treatment schemes for
enhanced biological nitrogen and/or phosphorous removal.

Modern biofilter systems are used as submerged aerobic or anoxic process units, normally as
part of a wider treatment concept. The biofilters may be fixed bed (plastic modules), expanded
clay or fluidized bed systems. The most important benefits of biofilm systems versus AS
systems are related to less chances of loosing biomass at extreme hydraulic loads, less need for
precise hydraulic control (water and sludge streams), and less need for large separation units.
Although a variety of modern biofilter concepts are being developed at present, those concepts
are still mainly of interest to larger plants.

The rotating biological contactor (RBC) or biodisc systems have been on the small WWTP
market for a long time, and this has been one of the most common categories for package
plants. RBC experiences are not only positive, e.g. severe equipment breakdown has occurred
in several cases. Also, the general rising interest for SBR and other modern small WWTP
systems have led to a decreasing demand for RBC concepts. The RBCs are still considered
attractive due to low energy consumption and simple and stable operation, but the systems as
such have not changed very much during the last decade.

REFERENCES
/1/ J. F. Chabrier et al.: "Implementation of Directive 91/271/EEC in Italy and France for small wastewater
treatment plants: problems and perspectives", 2nd IAWQ Int. Spec. Conf. on Design and Operation of Small
Wastewater Treatment Plants (Small WWTP), Trondheim, June 1993.
/2/ H. Ødegaard: "Norwegian experiences with chemical treatment of raw wastewater". Proc. Int. Conf. on
Wastewater Management in Coastal Areas. Montpellier, France, 31. March - 2. April 1992.
/3/ P.D. Jensen: "Potential use of constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment in northern environments".
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/4/ B. Paulsrud and S. Haraldsen: "Experiences with the Norwegian approval system for small wastewater
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