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Challenges and Advances in Tertiary Waste Water Treatment for Municipal Treatment Plants
Summary
This review examined the challenges facing small and rural wastewater treatment plants in removing emerging pollutants, including microplastics. The study suggests that most current facilities lack advanced treatment stages, meaning they can serve as sources of microplastic contamination entering natural waterways, and highlights the need for improved tertiary and quaternary treatment technologies.
Municipal waste water treatment plants have a fundamental task, which is to rid waste water of toxic and health-threatening organic and inorganic substances, including unwanted microorganisms and other pollutants, with the highest possible efficiency so that the discharged water does not contaminate the natural environment, which happens in the case of imperfect cleaning. Current WWTPs usually have a preliminary, primary, and secondary stage, and in very few cases even a tertiary stage, which no longer guarantees the sufficient removal of pollutants from waste water. This research presents the current situation in different parts of the world concerning the possibility of solving the current situation regarding the tertiary and quaternary stages of this process, especially in small and rural WWTPs serving up to approx. 10,000 equivalent inhabitants, which could ensure the removal of so-called emerging pollutants, including microplastics, and would stop WWTPs being point sources of environmental contamination.