What are the Advantages of Decentralized Wastewater Treatment

As the world continues to change and evolve, finding more sustainable solutions to combat environmental challenges has become the focus of many industries.

One such approach to combating these sustainability challenges in the water industry is decentralized wastewater treatment. This approach to wastewater treatment helps eliminate the need for extensive infrastructure and reduces the strain on current centralized systems.

In this blog post, we will take a look at the differences between centralized and decentralized wastewater treatment solutions, while specifically focusing on the advantages that come with a decentralized system.

What is Decentralized Wastewater Treatment?

Traditional municipal sewage wastewater treatment in the United States is to build one large wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). If you had a neighborhood that would eventually build and grow to 1,000 homes and 100 businesses, for example, a large WWTP to accommodate that full amount would be financed and built prior to the neighborhood being started.

Decentralized wastewater treatment is building multiple smaller WWTPs that are working together.

Another example, and more common because of budget restraints, is a WWTP that was designed for 1,000 homes and 100 business is supporting 1,200 homes and 120 businesses and is operating poorly over capacity. Over capacity is expensive to operate, hard on equipment, and many times produces discharge water at lower quality that is damaging the environment and hazardous to the people living in the neighborhood. Adding decentralized WWTP solutions to take the extra load off the main WWTP is by far less expensive than building a larger WWTP and shutting the older and smaller WWTP down. Another advantage is adding a decentralized WWTP to a an existing WWTP is no shutdown is required.

Advantages the Decentralized Waste Water Treatment Plants

• Significantly less initial Capital is Needed: You no longer have to get tax money or large long-term investments available for a single larger WWTP. As the neighborhood grows, and begins creating capital, commonly the next phase of decentralized WWTP is already being funded.

• Easier to Operate: Smaller WWTPs have far less maintenance and operating requirements than single larger WWTPs.

• Built-In Redundancy: When one decentralized WWTP needs to be shut down for maintenance, the others can temporarily pick up the extra capacity. There is no longer a concern about unscheduled maintenance.

• Utility Planning: Decentralized WWTPs do not need to be tied together. Cities can design to have a few up North, a few in the South, a few in the West, and a few in the East, for example. This makes it very easy to grow a community as city engineers change jobs and priorities change.

This approach offers many benefits, from cost-effectiveness, promoting environmental stewardship, and can help create a more efficient utility structure for communities.

Contact MAC Water For Decentralized Waste Water Treatment Solutions

If you have any other questions regarding decentralized WWTP, or our MACU-Cleanse, we are happy to help anywhere in the world. Our MAC Water Technologies products and solutions have been used all over the globe.

Contact us today for more information on how we can improve your current wastewater treatment system or if you're curious about decentralized wastewater treatment solutions.