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Decentralized waste and wastewater treatment – Strategies and experiences

The technical-scientific community for many years has been engaged in the identification of waste management ways coherent with the concept of Integrated System, thus finalized to waste avoidance, materials and energy recovery, final disposal in environmentally sustainable landfills. “Sustainability” idea is present in the history of the humanity since its origin. In 1987 World Commission on Environment and Development defined “Sustainable Development” as a development “which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”.

Waste and landfill problems should be managed keeping in mind this concept. In the challenge of enviromental sustainability also water obviously holds a priority concern. The global threat to waster availability is reflected mainly by two aspects: First, the alteration of run-off as a consequence of progressinve changes in land and soil uses; second, the diminuition of waster quality brounght about by several polluting sources such domestic, industrial, agrarian wastewaters and landfill leachate. A significant contribution to the latter is associated to the traditional approach to sanitation and waste management. This conventional approach is based on a linear masses flux in which waster is used as medium to transport undesirable substances away from household. Therefore, centralized end-of-pipe solution are the answer to polluting issue. This approach was for many years regarded as an optimal choice to water management, and what is more, is was seen as an inherent component of development. As a consequence this "flushing culture" has been imposed all around the world. Disagreeing voices have been heard since 15 years only. The idea of use huge quantities of water just to transport substances siluting them, and then in the best case, being forced to invest enormous amount of natural and financial resources to remove these substances in a centralized wastewater treatment plant, does not seem sustainable any longer. In the search for sustainable solutions concepts such as "Ecological Sanitation" and "Decentralised wastewater and resuse" emerged, proposing a novel approach to sanitation based upon no more on end-of-pipe solutions, but upon a separate management of substances ans upon on-site treatment. The rationale behind this concept is to close water and food cycle, and then, to facilitate the reuse of water and the recovery of the substances. The substances that under the traditional conception were deemed as wste, under the news approach becamo resources. However in a society which has developed itself with the flushing end-of-pipe approach, putting into practice the novel sustainable concepts is so far from being aa straightforward task. Furthermore, there are still many scientific and technical aspects of these concepts that need to be addressed before undertaking a larger implementation of them. In this direction, new approaches in wastewater and solid waste management, based on source separation, appropriate treatment, recycling and reuse, have encountered increasing interest and application in the recent years.

Copyright:	© Verlag Abfall aktuell
Quelle:	Band 31 - Deponietechnik 2008 (Februar 2008)
Seiten:	19
Preis:	€ 0,00
Autor:	Raffaello Cossu L. Alibardi
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