Sewage treatment plant (STP) plays vital role in the process of removing the contaminants from sewage to produce liquid and solid (sludge) suitable for discharge to the environment or for reuse. We know that 75% of the world’s fresh water resources are contaminated, the remaining is fast disappearing. Waste water is produced from toilets, baths, showers, kitchens, sinks, and so forth that are disposed of via sewers.
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Why Sewage Treatment Plant
One question that many people might ask is, “Why not simply dump this wastewater onto the ground outside the house, or into a nearby stream?” If you release wastewater directly into the environment, things get very smelly very fast. Human waste naturally contains bacteria that can cause disease. Once water becomes infected with these bacteria, it becomes a health hazard. The increased algae, reduced oxygen and murkiness destroy the ability of a stream or lake to support wildlife, and all of the fish, frogs and other life forms quickly die. That’s why communities build wastewater treatment plants and enforce laws against the release of raw sewage into the environment.
Stages in Sewage Treatment Plant
Pre-treatment: Pre-treatment removes materials that can be easily collected from the raw wastewater before they damage or clog the pumps and skimmers of primary treatment clarifiers. The influent sewage water is strained to remove all large objects carried in the sewage stream. This is most commonly done with an automated mechanically raked bar screen in modern plants serving large populations, whilst in smaller or less modern plants a manually cleaned screen may be used.
Primary treatment: Conventional sewage treatment may involve three stages, called primary, secondary and tertiary treatment. Primary treatment consists of temporarily holding the sewage in a quiescent basin where heavy solids can settle to the bottom while oil, grease and lighter solids float to the surface. The settled and floating materials are removed and the remaining liquid may be discharged or subjected to secondary treatment.
Secondary treatment: Secondary treatment is typically performed by indigenous, water-borne micro-organisms in a managed habitat. Secondary treatment may require a separation process to remove the micro-organisms from the treated water prior to discharge or tertiary treatment. Secondary treatment removes dissolved and suspended biological matter.
Tertiary treatment: Tertiary treatment is effected by sand filters, mechanical filtration or by passing the effluent through a constructed wetland such as a reed bed or grass plot. Tertiary treatment is sometimes defined as anything more than primary and secondary treatment. Treated water is sometimes disinfected chemically or physically (for example by lagoons and micro filtration) prior to discharge into a stream, river, bay, lagoon or wetland, or it can be used for the irrigation of a golf course, green way or park. If it is sufficiently clean, it can also be used for groundwater recharge or agricultural purposes.
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Sludge Treatment
Sludge produced by sewage treatment is organic in nature and contain useful amounts of plant nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus and essential trace elements. The first objective should be to utilize the sludge as a fertilizer or soil conditioner on agricultural land. Sludge is treated using a variety of digestion techniques, the purpose of which is to reduce the amount of organic matter and the number of disease-causing microorganisms present in the solids. The most common treatment options include anaerobic digestion, aerobic digestion, and composting.
Anaerobic digestion generates biogas with a high proportion of methane that may be used to both heat the tank and run engines or microturbines for other on-site processes. In large treatment plants sufficient energy can be generated in this way to produce more electricity than the machines require. Anaerobic digestion is a bacterial process that is carried out in the absence of oxygen.
Aerobic digestion is a bacterial process occurring in the presence of oxygen. Under aerobic conditions, bacteria rapidly consume organic matter and convert it into carbon dioxide. Once there is a lack of organic matter, bacteria die and are used as food by other bacteria.
Composting is also an aerobic process that involves mixing the wastewater solids with sources of carbon such as sawdust, straw or wood chips. In the presence of oxygen, bacteria digest both the wastewater solids and the added carbon source and, in doing so, produce a large amount of heat.
Role of bacteria
In the typical sewage treatment plant, oxygen is added to improve the functioning of aerobic bacteria and to assist them in maintaining superiority over the anaerobes. Aerobic bacteria require oxygen for life support whereas anaerobes can sustain life without oxygen. Facultative bacteria have the capability of living either in the presence or in the absent of oxygen. Microorganisms and their enzyme systems are responsible for many different chemical reactions produced in the degradation of organic matter. As the bacteria metabolize, grow and divide they produce enzymes. These enzymes are high molecular weight proteins. All treatment plants should be designed to take advantage of the decomposition of organic materials by bacterial activity.
Sewage Treatment Plant is becoming ever more critical due to diminishing water resources, increasing waste-water disposal costs, and stricter discharge regulations that have lowered permissible contaminant levels in waste streams. Effective waste-water collection and treatment are of great importance from the standpoint of both environmental and public health. In recent years, there has been growing interest in waste-water reuse as a major component of water demand management.
Recommended Sewage Treatment Plants for Apartments
Sewage Treatment plant system can be opened or fully sealed. Some apartments adopt partially sealed system. One of main disadvantage of opened or partially sealed system is sewage is broken down by bacteria and during this process methane is released into campus or at ground floor level. The gas released from sewage chamber due to biological processing (by bacteria) will contain methane. Methane is highly combustible and toxic.
Sewage Treatment Plant with opened or partially closed is not recommended for apartment or densely populated areas. In this system smell can be sensed for miles. This system is only useful for large sewage treatments. For small residential units a completely sealed package unit is recommended. Sewage compartments with methane gas should be located away from car parking or area that can cause ignition or spark. Any ignition or spark can easily catch fire in sewage compartments with methane gas.
For apartments or for small residential units, automated system is recommended as this will reduce maintenance cost. Disadvantage of manually operated system is, there are chances of human error of dry running the pumps or not starting pumps in time. This can result in machinery breakdown or overflow of sludge. Automated system helps to prevent breakdown or over flow and association can save more than Rs 15000 per month on maintenance cost. Manually operating system is cheaper to install comparing to automated system but cost of maintenance is higher when comparing with automated system. The system release methane. This is supposed to be in sealed chambers and then released at a point few meters above the tallest point of the building. This should be taken care while designing sewage treatment plant for apartments or high-rise. In Metropolitan cities and urban areas, sewage treatment plant or mini sewage treatment plant is mandatory for getting a new water connection. Please contribute your knowledge on installing or setting up sewage treatment plant. If your apartment complex has sewage treatment plants, feel free to share your ideas in maintaining Sewage Treatment Plants.
Find Vendors to set up a Sewage Treatment Plant at your community. . CommonFloor Vendor Connect
Tags: completely sealed sewage system, mini sewage treatment plant, property management, residential sewage treatment plant, save water, Sewage treatment plant, sewage treatment plant design, Sewage treatment plant for apartment, sewage treatment plant process, sewage treatment system, stages in sewage treatment plant, wastewater treatment
Water treatment has become the necessity now.
How to make India as beautiful as the developed nations for all humans and just not people here? From a shop I bought chocolate and then chewing gum because some kid there told me he liked it so I bought it and gave one to him. I ate them from the shop towards my apartment. However, there’s no trash bin on the way. Such things are part of the mindset. I went back to shop and threw the wrappers in its trash bin. It would require a lot of effort for such mindset to evolve for most people here because until the basic needs are met people generally don’t invest money or themselves in general for such things. I would think entrepreneurs providing waste management services could help build and grow such mindset in people by making it more beautiful and overall better and hence people realizing its value.
Dear sir,
Really it is great thing you have done by not throwing wrappers in basket. Really this need awareness and people should think that not only keeping our home or its premises clean is our duty but also we must keep our public places such as bus stop, railway station and places were we visit for picnic or tour.
One and all people come forward to keep their neighborhood clean and spread this message to others. Entrepreneurs providing waste management services must also think this as social service than a social business
Thank you
Hello Ms. Singh,
Thank You for mentioning on entrepreneurs. I had emailed to Amul, Coca Cola, Kwality Walls, PepsiCo:
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You are leaders in refreshments and other eatables. You provide fixed or movable storage machines to keep refreshments and other eatables. If you can provide trash bin perhaps attached to your machines to dispose wrappers or used bottles the vendor whether at shop or on the street would empty it. Your customers might use your trash bin for more than just your items and that would be great in terms of cleanliness but perhaps not for the vendor in particular the street vendor because of much limited resources to empty it properly. In this regard, you could even help the vendor by providing training and support. Regardless, whether your trash bin gets used for just your items or more, it would help significantly.
I think you would be able to implement effective solutions for trash bin and helping the vendor to empty it properly within your budgets on which even I could think just by myself like by using waste products to make the many required trash bins and hiring cleaners within regions to provide support. Your efforts might even help provide more jobs including those making trash bins from waste products. You could even purchase many types of trash bins and modify them for your machines like of washable fabrics that can be rolled when stored and opened and fixed using materials when used. You would have much better educated and experienced professionals for this.
This would be a great service and so I request you to contribute. If your efforts are only driven by owner’s interests then also you might get more customers because people should like that your efforts are helping keep their environments cleaner. Regardless, it would be a great service even if just for improving your environment and that I think within your budget. I realize I can just share my thoughts but you are the leaders.
Thank You,
Shakti Saran
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I have mentioned the same on http://shaktisaran.tech.officelive.com/FoodQuality.aspx
Best,
Shakti Saran
In this regard, entrepreneurs in waste management services can make it more beautiful and overall better even towards helping build and grow such mindsets.
Good article. Very informative.
How much land space is required for apartments to implement this waste management recycle plant?
Mr Prashant Spark: Size of STP and the space required will depend on the volume of water to be treated. We have six apartments in our block served by a septic tank of 10000 lit. capacity.
we use Biomagic regularly, it is giving good service. For more info. please contact me via
E-Mail vkr7755@gmail.com or by phone = 91 9952988540. V.K. Raman, Chennai.
Is is permitted to discharge the treated waste water into lakes / rivers?
Discharge of the treated sewage is mainly depends on the State Pollution Control Board rules and regulations.
It is better to reuse it for Gardening.
Hello Mahesh,
I am resident of an appartment that has an 180KLD STP. I am incharge of proper running on this plant. Will you know where I can get to see the rules and regulations for the sewage treatment for appartment complex. I am trying to find out what is the official version of these rules and regulations and thus what we are expected to conform to.
Regards,
Abhijit.
Dear Abhijit,
For operating STP , you need to get Consent for Operation (CFO) from Pollution Control Board.
In the Consent orders it self they will (PCB) put all the Conditions.
Next, you can also contact Regional Office of Pollution Control Board in your area, for further details.
Best Regards,
Mahesh
@Mahesh: Really useful info…. Share more ideas on STP for Apartment (beginners)
Hello All,
Very good article…My question is what would be the investment in installing a treatment plant for a small apartment block? and the space required of course
Investment (STP for Apartment) depends on the number of persons and the sewage generation rate.
Approximately for the STP of 10 KLD capacity, the ivestment may come around 3 lakhs.
Dear friends
Great of you to have gone back to the store and chucked the wrappers . Sheila Dixit, chief minister of NCR went on a foreign jaunt as soon as she took charge and got too inspired by the waste disposal system as to decide to plant designer garbage cans throughout Sarojini Nagar market (one of the biggest in Delhi). After a week the chief minister decided to check on the civic sense of the shoppers (mostly upmarket) only to discover to her dismay that the garbage can had all evaporated into thin air. so much for our civic sense.
hello what are the main aspects to consider when considering options to develop water treatment in rural areas.
Hi,
I have a question. Builder has installed a Manual STP at our apartment premises. Now when it comes to running the STP, he says at least 4 motors needed to be runing for 24hrs to keep the bacteria alive. And the maintenance guy is asking for 25000/- for maintenance with 1 dedicated person always there to see the stp working.
Total cost of maintenance including electricity bill looks like to be around 50000/-!!!
Its like keeping an elephant.
Can you verify these figures, its a 104 flat apartment.
How much should be the maintenance cost?
Any vendor contact who can maintain. Also, the methane story makes me afraid as the STP we have looks like very desi and not up to the standard( this is purely my feeling)
regards
Bibek
Bibek – it is true that running an STP is not an easy thing. Most of us, when we buy appartment look into our flooring and the wood of our main door. Things line STP, WTP, fire system etc… are not looked into as we are not aware of this and we tend to believe that God will take care of this.
Monthly cost you mentioned is normal. You will then find that these folks do not have standard procedures or report. Only document they will produce will be the invoice. It is necessary for association / society people to be heavily engaged in such things otherwise, do understand that the O&M contract is a second time you will be taken for a ride.
I am the STP incharge of a 200 flat appartment. It is true the the blowers need to run 24 hours for bacteria. On top of that there are other things which need to work well for STP to do its job.
Dear Abhijit & Raman,
Thanks for your reply. To proceed further, can you tell me where can this biomagic be purchased in bangalore? Whats the price? Any contact in bangalore whi can manage the plant professionally?
regards
Bibek
bibekbasu@gmail.com
Mr Bibek: Your apartment of 104 Flats should be producing one lakh litres of waste water.
Try using Biomagic @ one Kg. per day and your monthly expenses will be halved. My reply to Mr Abhijit Chakrabarty will give full details about Biomagic.
dear sir,
i would like to purpose a sewage treatment plant for my village.
we have a big pond where all the waste water from village goes.
i would like to reuse that water for irrigation purpose.so for the same i would like to know how much will it cost. approx population of our village is 600 peoples.
Mr Gurpal: Please contact me through E-Mail vkr7755@gmail.com or by Mobile No. + 91 9952988540 so that I can provide details of Punjab type low cost STP . Till you have the
STP installed, you may use Biomagic details of which you can see in my reply to
Mr Abhijit Chakrabarty.
Dear Mr. Raman,
Pls. tell me Biomagic is a chemical or any type of neutralizer for controlling / reducing BOD and TSS in sewage ?
Regards,
Mahesh
Dear Sir,
Its good to know that your taking very good ideas for your village and your village people .
In this regard i would be very very happy to speak to you personally and go ahead with this .
Thanks / Regards
S . Phillip Raj
Mob – 91 9980669361
91 8050546510
91 9738274236
Hi Mahesh: Biomagic is protein and enzyme based bioformulation. It induces
aerobic action in aerobic and anaerobic type of STPs (whether working or defunct)
as well as in septic tanks, waste water stagnations and biodegradable solid waste,
poultry, dairy, fish/meat processing units, etc. Contact me for more info.
My mail i/d is vkr7755@gmail.com TKU.
To Mr Abhijit Chakrabarty: Please try using Biomagic for a week or 10 days.
You may find it very effective and economical. If you contact me, samples can be
sent for free trial. V.K. Raman 0-9952988540.
The article is informative but contains one very important factual error. In STP of apartment buildings where Aerobic Digestion is designed for (Like extended aeration system) no Methane Gas is produced. Only under aerobic condition Methane gas is produced. Moreover aerobic digestion is much more effective in STP than anaerobic process.
Hence one can easily set up a STP, with aerobic process, near car parking area and it also does not produce objectionable smell caused due to release of Hydrogen Sulfide as in anaerobic process.
Instead of ‘Only under aerobic condition Metane gas is produced’ should be read as ‘Only under anaerobic condition Metane gas is produced.’
Those of you who have not tried using BIOMAGIC for sewage treatment, please contact me
so that I can arrange to send free sample. It can work on any STP whether working or
defunct. No need to run the aerators/blowers. It is non-hazardous, non-toxic, non-allergic and
non-corrosive. It is cost effective too. Plse. contact V.K. Raman, vkr7755@gmail.com or
+919952988540.
I think it is time we re-looked at STP technologies. Most solutions offered in India today are derived from the Activated Sludge process or Suspended Growth treatment system. Air is pumped into the treatment tank to infuse oxygen and increase bio-degradation of waste. This requires a lot of space and power, intensive maintenance and control and prone to dysfunction. The technology developed by Dr. Naik and patented is called Rotating Media Bio-Reactor and works on the Attached Growth treatment system. Oxygen is brought into contact with the waste water through a rotating drum which contains media thereby increasing surface area manifold. The advantages of this is: considerably reduced footprint (by 70%), much less power requirement, no odour, noiseless, very little maintenance (automated) and high quality treated water which can be re-used. Look up our website and write to me for more information.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/video.cfm?lineup=1406165298&id=644170785001 mentions on processing waste and turning it into value.
Please follow this link for an article that appeared in The Hindu on the improved Ecobiopack for Sewage Treatment. http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-propertyplus/article843944.ece
I mentioned this last night on my Facebook wall from your web-site:
Nice. Today an autorickshaw driver mentioned that his father when he visited the city didn’t eat vegetables during his stay of a week or so because he’s a village farmer and went to see how vegetables here are grown or cleaned and realized that very dirty water is used for it. He shared several things and so I got his mobile number to perhaps learn more from him including to share here.
Interesting insight and so very true. A lot of the vegetables around Bangalore are grown and washed in dirty water and I am told more so the spinach. Added to this are the pesticides used… tell us more Saran. Incidentally the millions of litres of sewage water generated in the city can be safely treated and used for agriculture.
Thank You for your response Rajaram. I have shared some thoughts here which might be of value:
http://in.social.msn.com/profile/XwbQ6HuXkwNi8cofHFA1-MoT8_mMN6eMS?mkt=en-in
I had also shared this on my Facebook:
http://www.asianage.com/columnists/healthy-dose-poison-360
Best,
Shakti Saran
These might also be of value:
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_delhi-cm-inaugurates-sewage-water-treatment-plants-at-commonwealth-games-village_1398718
“India allows 25bn litres of sewage into its rivers”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6984340.ece
“Water and Wastewater Engineering and Management – A Civil Engineering Course under the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning”
http://www.indiawaterportal.org/taxonomy/term/6735
Best,
Shakti Saran
Conventional sewage treatment plant involves three stages, called primary, secondary and tertiary treatment.
First,with Conventional sewage treatment plant the solids are separated from the wastewater stream. Then dissolved biological matter is progressively converted into a solid mass by using indigenous, water-borne micro-organisms. Finally, the biological solids are neutralized then disposed of or re-used, and the treated water may be disinfected chemically or physically (for example by lagoons and microfiltration).
The final effluent can be discharged into a stream, river, bay, lagoon or wetland, or it can be used for the irrigation of a golf course, green way or park. If it is sufficiently clean, it can also be used for groundwater recharge or agricultural purposes.
[...] treatment plants and enforce laws against the release of raw sewage into the environment. Sewage Treatment plant system are used to recycle blackwater. In recent years, there has been growing interest in [...]
we require one stp for our project pl call 93425 88639
JMS Biotech has been involved in Design, Establishment, Operation and Maintenance of Sewage and solid waste projects since 2009. We are committed to providing our clients with efficient, sustainable and cost effective solutions to waste management issues. Our clients represent a cross-section of private firms, municipal governments, as well as Urban Development Bodies. Our solutions are based upon probiotic technologies using OS beneficial microbialsolution. We are taking forward these initiative in entire south India. Pls contact Kris.Madhusudan 9845201959
We have problem of overflowing sewage in one of the drainage area and particularly in a block and while rest of the block of flats are unaffected. We need an expert in STP operations as one who can understand and work on layout and fixing this issue.
Request for a STP expert to help us find out the root cause of this issue.
Dear Sir
Your STP problem can be solved after seeing at the site on chargeable basis.
Thanks
Devendra (LKEST)
09313864938
Some one could help me in simple design of STP
Simple STP recommended is package STP. The package STP will operate by itself requiring minimal attention from the plant operator. The package STP has dimensions similar to that of standard containers. It can therefore be easily crane mounted on to a standard truck trailer and then shifted to site / new site as and when required.
Thank you
We are using septic system for our waste water disposal and it works well as long as it is maintain properly and inspect in a regular basis.
JMS Biotech has been involved in Design, Establishment, Operation and Maintenance of Sewage and solid waste projects since 2009. We are committed to providing our clients with efficient, sustainable and cost effective solutions to waste management issues. Our clients represent a cross-section of private firms, municipal governments, as well as Urban Development Bodies. Our solutions are based upon probiotic technologies using OS beneficial microbialsolution. We are taking forward these initiative in entire south India.You can contact Kris.Madhusudan 9845201959 for details
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Dear All,
I had an interesting read of all your discussions above. We recently moved into a flat in Kolathur and it consists of 192 flats in total. We are having issues with STP time and again and the association feels that the builder has provided one with lower capacity or of a lower quality. I would appreciate if someone can let me know whats the minimum capacity of an STP for 192 flats and if someone can visit the existing STP and provide an audit on the existing system. I do not want marketing calls stating that the entire system can be replaced. We just need a proper audit done to ensure that the builder has justly completed the STP as per the norms. I can be reached at 9940067841 or preferably by email at selvamraja@gmail.com
Thanks in advance,
Selvam