Treatment in The Receiving Environment
Many processes in a wastewater treatment plant are designed to mimic the natural treatment processes that occur in the environment, whether that environment is a natural water body or the ground. If not overloaded, bacteria in the environment will consume organic contaminants, although this will reduce the levels of oxygen in the water and may significantly change the overall ecology of the receiving water. Native bacterial populations feed on the organic contaminants, and the numbers of disease-causing microorganisms are reduced by natural environmental conditions such as predation or exposure to ultraviolet radiation. Consequently, in cases where the receiving environment provides a high level of dilution, a high degree of wastewater treatment may not be required. However, recent evidence has demonstrated that very low levels of specific contaminants in wastewater, including hormones (from animal husbandry and residue from human hormonal contraception methods) and synthetic materials such as phthalates that mimic hormones in their action, can have an unpredictable adverse impact on the natural biota and potentially on humans if the water is re-used for drinking water. In the US and EU, uncontrolled discharges of wastewater to the environment are not permitted under law, and strict water quality requirements are to be met, as clean drinking water is essential. (For requirements in the US, see Clean Water Act.) A significant threat in the coming decades will be the increasing uncontrolled discharges of wastewater within rapidly developing countries.
Read more about this topic: Sewage Treatment
Famous quotes containing the words treatment in, treatment, receiving and/or environment:
“The treatment of African and African American culture in our education was no different from their treatment in Tarzan movies.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“I feel that any form of so called psychotherapy is strongly contraindicated for addicts.... The question “Why did you start using narcotics in the first place?” should never be asked. It is quite as irrelevant to treatment as it would be to ask a malarial patient why he went to a malarial area.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)
“Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hooves i’ the receiving earth;
For ‘tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Modern man’s capacity for destruction is quixotic evidence of humanity’s capacity for reconstruction. The powerful technological agents we have unleashed against the environment include many of the agents we require for its reconstruction.”
—George F. Will (b. 1941)