Discharge of inadequately treated waste water containing nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen as well as organic matter and bacteria is associated with a risk of eutrophication and contamination. The Swedish government has decided upon several Environmental Quality Objectives aiming to reduce the emissions of nutrients to water bodies. In Sweden, there are between 675 000 to 1 000 000 on-site sewage systems. Recent studies have shown that the function of small sewage treatment plants is in many cases insufficient. To prevent this regular service and supervision by a professional is needed. The focus of this study are small sewage treatment plants which use a technique where mechanical, chemical and/or biological reduction of pollutants is being used in the same facility to reduce nutrients in household wastewater. The aim of the study is to investigate how different municipalities ensure that small sewage treatment plants fulfill the requirements and reduce pollutants as efficient as the manufacturers claim. To do this, a survey was carried out, leading to a data-set that is covering more than 90 municipalities. The results show that many municipalities lack resources to ensure that small sewage treatment plants work properly. Operation and maintenance of the plants is an important issue, and should be given much more attention. Therefore the municipalities should request more documentation from the owners both before and after installation to make sure that the small sewage treatment plant can fulfill the required standard. About half of the municipalities demand that the owners acquire some kind of service agreement with the manufacturer. If small sewage treatment plants should be a wastewater treatment solution that we can rely on in the future, there is a need of evaluating and analyzing these facilities more systematically.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-101317 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Stenbacka, Nina |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för ekologi, miljö och geovetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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