THREE YEARS EXPERIENCE WITH A DEMONSTRATION SCALE SBR - MBR HYBRID SYSTEM FOR ONSITE WASTEWATER TREATMENT AND REUSE

摘要

Cities worldwide are facing a mounting water crisis from climate change, population expansion, and deteriorating infrastructure that threatens economic development, social welfare, and environmental sustainability. New strategies are needed for water/wastewater treatment and distribution that will reduce the need to pump water over long distances and provide opportunities to reclaim and reuse wastewater locally. While many approaches involving contemporary treatment processes could be used to transition urban water infrastructure to this more sustainable state, their implementation currently is limited by uncertainties about their long-term performance, life cycle costs, institutional impediments, and public concerns about new technologies. Distributed wastewater treatment does not require extensive sewer systems and offers opportunities for a more sustainable management of local water resources (Daigger, 2009). Reclaimed water quality can be tailored to local needs, such as landscape irrigation, groundwater recharge, streamflow augmentation, or service water used in households (e.g., toilet flushing). The drawbacks of distributed wastewater treatment could be the higher specific cost of reclaimed water originating from economy of scale (Sander, 2003). These costs could be balanced through savings associated with the construction and maintenance of sewer systems, the need for a dedicated conveyance system to provide reclaimed water to end-users, and pumping costs.