DEVELOPMENT OF CONSTRUCTED WETLANDS FOR DECENTRALIZED TREATMENT OF WASTEWATER FROM RURAL SECTOR

Abstract

By being a developing country and having a vast area (about 70%) coming under the rural area, India is limited in developing wastewater facilities in management and cost. Presented with such scenario, as a way of availing means of reuse of wastewater in rural areas where there are no centralized wastewater treatment systems and improving the environmental quality, health, and dwellers' well-being paramount importance to select a sustainable, environmentally friendly and cost-effective technique. Small-scale vertical flow systems were put in place and assessed their performance in treating high concentration domestic wastewater. In this study, the major work focus was to evaluate the relative importance of the presence of different plant species with the incorporation of sludge and sand-based system to remove pollutants. The results showed that the best treatment performance was attained with an HRT of 6 days on most pollutants except for Nitrate, which came out to be four days. Using HRT of 6 days (4 days only for Nitrate), the mean removal efficiencies of TP, Nitrate, COD and BOD in normal based planted and sludge-based planted, and control VFCW systems were 80.94 ± 11%, 76.09 ± 11 and 45 ± 8% (control); 78.9 ± 6%, 76.5 ± 6% and 47% (control); 35 %, 34.8 % and 11% (control) and 50.62 ± 4%, 49.17 ± 4% and 30.40 ± 5% respectively. With the sludge-based, the performance was promising except for the COD removal, which was too low. Its performance could not match the counterpart, but it proved to be promising such that it offers a novel reuse option for sludge compared to landfill. The results of this study can be the foundation of further studies, which will perfect the system.