SLUDGE & BIOSOLIDS PROCESSING RESOURCES

• Your Sewage Is Valuable Muck

  A world without phosphorous is a world without life. But phosphorous is a finite resource, so researchers are recovering it from sewage.

• Microwaving Sewage Waste May Make It Safe To Use As Fertilizer On Crops

  Biosolids — primarily dead bacteria — from sewage plants are usually dumped into landfills. However, they are rich in nutrients and can potentially be used as fertilizers. But farmers can’t just replace the normal fertilizers they use on agricultural soil with these biosolids. The reason is that they are often contaminated with toxic heavy metals like arsenic, lead, mercury and cadmium from industry. But dumping them in the landfills is wasting precious resources. So, what is the solution?

• CASPERON Solution Brings Process, Operation And Cost Benefits To Michigan Facility

  For 15 years, plans to double the capacity of Michigan’s Zeeland Clean Water Plant remained stalled as the City of Zeeland worked toward a joint wastewater treatment contract with two neighboring Ottawa County communities. As a result, maintaining efficient aeration control posed a challenge for the 1.65 million gallons per day (MGD) facility. When expansion plans moved forward in 2016, the city alleviated those problems with the Xylem Sanitaire CASPERON activated sludge solution process, which eliminated the use of lime to treat waste and significantly reduced the volume of biosolid residuals.

• Ephrata Borough Authority Battles Chronic Sludge Settling

  Ephrata Borough Authority WRRF, located in the MidAtlantic region of the United States, has been battling chronic sludge settling issues since undergoing a BNR upgrade in 2011 to meet new permit limits. During the winter months, SVI values have reached as high as 300 mL/g.

• Defining High Quality Biosolids: Exploring Options To Create A Market For Biosolid Products

  Water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs) are already aware of the idea that biosolids can be a valuable commodity. Consequently, there is opportunity to grow this market. The use of biosolids can create products that have value and generate a customer demand that ultimately leads to an economic incentive for WRRFs. There are several factors that contribute to the success of biosolid products, like the quality of biosolids and information available about how and where to use high quality biosolids.

• Combining Biosolids Waste Streams? Not So Fast…

  The idea of combining two systems into one sounds like a common-sense solution to simplifying operations.  Wastewater treatment plant operators have been experimenting with this concept by combining waste activated sludge with primary and septage waste streams with the goal of lowering system complexity.  The reality of these efforts is proving, in many cases, to be problematic.

• Sludge Thickeners: The Good, The Bad, And The Smelly

  Management of wastewater sludge is a core responsibility of treatment plant operators. With this responsibility comes common challenges that must be overcome.  These include controlling odors so as to have a minimal impact on the surrounding community and minimizing hauling costs for its disposal.  Getting a handle on both of these responsibilities and more can be much easier with the proper sludge-thickening equipment.

• Sludge Sampling For Polymer Selection — Critical For Project Success

  Polymers — the chemicals used in wastewater to thicken sludges and facilitate the removal of water — are critical to the operational efficiency of sludge-thickening equipment. Unfortunately, it’s common practice at treatment facilities to order and install equipment before even considering what the ideal polymer might be for the sludge produced at the specific plant. This flawed process is time consuming, disruptive to plant operations, and can become very costly.

• How To Boost Wastewater Treatment Capacity Within An Existing Footprint

  Municipalities can find themselves in a real bind when wastewater treatment operations are strained by population growth. That’s because facilities are either landlocked and can’t expand at their current location, or the prospect of building an addition isn’t in the budget. When the bottleneck is at the digesters — the tanks where microorganisms break down waste — there are some common-sense strategies treatment plants can employ to address those growing pains.

• Can We Turn Sewage 'Sludge' Into Something Valuable?

  Over the past few years I have become an academic expert in “sewage sludge” — the residual, semi-solid mix of excrement packed with microorganisms that is left behind within wastewater treatment plants. Every year the UK alone produces approximately 1.4 million tons of the stuff. About 80 percent of it is spread on fields as manure, but this still leaves us with a headache — what do we do with the rest?