Feasibility of treatment of low polluted waste water in municipal waste water treatment plants

In many cases municipal waste water treatment plants receive considerable amounts of low polluted waste water like pretreated industrial waste water, polluted ground water etc. It is not known to what extent treatment of this type of waste water in a municipal waste water treatment plant is feasible with regard to environmental effects and costs. In this paper the effects of this type of waste water on the removal efficiencies of nitrogen, heavy metals and organic micropollutants have been described and costs have been given to prevent an increase of emission loads. For an estimation of the effects on the emission loads simulation models have been used. For an existing oxidation system with a relatively high amount of low polluted waste water simulation runs have been made for situations with and without low polluted waste water. On basis of the results of this case study a system has been developed for the assessment of the feasibility of treatment of low polluted waste water in a municipal waste water treatment plant.