Nowadays ecology and respect of the environment are central to the collective unconscious: people are becoming aware of the rarity of water, and are realizing that it is a precious commodity that is more and more wasted. Indeed, only the two percent of wastewater are recycled in the entire world, while several regions of the planet are in and advanced state of drought and do not have even access to drinking water. However, the wastewater is able to be reused with no danger, thanks to a treatment in water treatment plants.
The second lives of wastewater
Most of people are fearful about reusing wastewater for their daily use, wrongly: indeed, when it is correctly treated, this water does not present any risk at all. So it can be used in the industry for the factories for example, and by the cities as well to the maintenance of the green spaces and the firemen to fight the fire. It also can be used by the farmer to irrigate their fields. Reuse wastewater offers many advantages and enables to save millions of liters a year.
The different steps of water treatment
To be purified the water needs to follow a strict treatment. It begins by screening water to remove the biggest impurities and suspended solids, like limestone crystals. The second step consists in degritting and degreasing the water, to remove floating matters and other sediments. Then the water is sent in a big sedimentation tank to be filtered through a sieve. After it has to be aerated to bring oxygen to it, and it is clarified a second time to enable the smallest impurities to fall at the bottom of the water. Then the water is treated for the third time, to remove the last impurities and the noxious chemical compounds like pesticides. Click if you want to learn more about urban and industrial sludge.
