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Filtration+Separation April 2008

Wastewater filtration:

A future for grey water recycling

K
en Sutherland looks at the characteristics and benefits of water recycling on the residential and institutional scale, and what challenges it has to face in the future.
Economics dictate that rainwater collection with relatively simple filtration may be the first recycling process to find wide favour.

The world is facing a variety of challenges global warming, potential energy shortages, deforestation, non-sustainable resource consumption, sea level rise because of ice cap melting (leading to coastal land loss), nonsustainable commercial fishing, holes in the ozone layer, housing shortages, probably nonsustainable population growth, animal and plant species endangered for all kinds of reasons and now water shortages, so severe in some parts of the world as to be causing economic problems on a national scale, leading to talk (from, among others, the Secretary General of the UN, no less) that these problems could escalate into war despite the occurrence of floods in other places. These shortages have many causes, mostly man-made, but the main ones are excessive consumption of raw water, population growth, and lack of rainfall in many areas (Australia, Portugal/Spain/France, California) probably caused by climate change which, paradoxically, maybe the cause of the floods as well. Much thought is being given to ways in which water shortages may be overcome, although little can be seen to have happened to make any significant changes the Millennium Development Goal for water was to reduce by half the proportion of people in the world without access to safe drinking water by 2015. It is now 2008, half way to the target date and the actual proportion lacking drinkable water has barely changed. As with any other resource, economy of water use has two main features: using less and wasting less on the one hand, coupled with finding or making available alternative sources of water on the other. As delivered water costs steadily increase (and especially as more domestic premises become subject to metered supplies), both domestic and industrial users have a natural incentive to

cut down on unnecessary water usage. The technologies for so doing are well known, and readily and widely available from not running the tap whilst cleaning ones teeth to a thorough pinch analysis of a plants use of water and all that is needed is an increase in incentive (or an extended drought) for a wide range of such measures to be brought into use. There is some way to go, however, as it is estimated that domestic water consumption in the UK, which has been rising steadily for many years (and is currently around 150 litres per head per day), is approximately twice what it needs to be to maintain the same sort of standard of life. The disparity with the developing world is, of course, disgraceful the UN suggests that a single toilet flush in the developed world

consumes as much water as is used in the poorer countries for one persons daily usage for drinking, cooking and basic health needs. Sadly, the developed world is conditioned to excessive consumption and waste of this precious resource, and reductions in these will not happen easily or soon. It is also frequently true that population growth occurs without adequate attention being given to the availability of water. These considerations suggest the need for alternative sources, the largest of which is the conversion of salt and brackish water to fresh water by various methods of desalination water occupies about 70% of the worlds surface, but less than 3% of the total water on the world is fresh (i.e. non salty) and only about one third of that is accessible. However, desalination

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is energy intensive, and as energy prices continue to rise, it may for a considerable time remain out of reach as a resource solution (a topic continually under consideration in the Desalination supplements to this magazine).

Wastewater as a resource
An alternative resource, currently occupying the thoughts of very many people, is that of the waste waters produced by human habitation and occupation. Almost all of the water that is abstracted and used for domestic, commercial, industrial and agricultural activities is returned to the earth, either immediately or after some delay. The two largest categories of abstraction are agricultural which largely returns at once as water for irrigation, and cooling water for power generation which also usually returns quickly to its source. The remaining abstractions, for domestic, commercial, institutional and industrial use, are mainly collected together after use, and treated, as waste water, before return to their sources. As yet there are not many people prepared to drink the product of a wastewater treatment plant however safe it can be shown to be. There are some very varied estimates of the use of water in domestic activities, but the figure generally applied in the case of the UK is 150 litres per head per day. This number, or one close to it, applies to most of the developed countries in temperate regions, and the resultant household usage will thus range from 200 to 750 litres per day. Comparable amounts of water are consumed by commercial and institutional establishments such as hotels, hospitals and laundries, as well, of course, as the office component of industrial installations.

It must be recognised that untreated grey water will still be a potential health hazard, as it contains many of the same microorganisms as black water, even if in much lower concentrations (for example, from fecal matter on clothing, especially in households with young children, and washed off hands and bodies), and it must therefore undergo some treatment if its re-use is to involve situations where human contact is likely. It is also subject to a much more rapid decomposition of its BOD/COD content than black water, so it cannot be stored in the untreated state for any length of time without going rancid and becoming discoloured. Grey water could, in principle, be collected separately from black water, and sent through an independent sewerage system for processing at central treatment

works. However, the need for a duplicate sewerage system would probably make this prohibitively expensive, so that local processing would be the sensible solution on the premises of the house, apartment block, hotel, etc, from which the water comes, and where the treated water would then be used. Separate collection would still be necessary, with the right degree of local treatment to enable the water to be re-used. Potential domestic uses for recycled grey water include garden and indoor plant watering, toilet flushing, car washing, and even dish and clothes washing. Such applications will all require that the water be given at least some purifying treatment even garden watering will need it if the water is to be applied by spraying rather than subsurface irrigation. A single

Grey water
Most of this water intake to domestic and commercial establishments ends up as waste water, with all of it going to the municipal sewer (apart from the relatively small proportion treated by septic tank or other very local systems). Of this waste, approximately 30 or 40% by volume is generated by toilet flushing, usually referred to as black (or foul) water, and this is definitely in need of thorough treatment before it can be released to the environment. The remainder, from kitchen, washing and bathing, laundry and so on, is referred to as grey water, and this is potentially available for recycling with much less intense treatment, according to how it is to be used. Grey water production from a typical household would be in the region of 200 to 300 litres (0.2 to 0.3 m3) per day, which means a national total for the UK in the region of 5 or 6 million m3 per day.

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Filtration+Separation April 2008

Grey water could be collected separately and sent through an independent sewerage system for processing at a central treatment works. However, the need for a duplicate sewerage system would probably make this prohibitively expensive.

house with a large garden, or attached smallholding would seem to be an ideal candidate for a grey water recycling plant customer.

undersurface pipes rather than spraying, because of the risk of aerosol generation, with the chance of spreading pathogens.

Rainwater harvesting Grey water treatment

The process used for treating grey water must clearly be less expensive than the cost of buying in fresh mains water the altruistic consumer cannot be assumed to exist. Such treatment will need to be readily acceptable to the property owner, and will thus have to be relatively simple, as automatic as possible with easy maintenance, and occupying as small a space as possible. Several treatment processes, of varying complexity and cost, have been suggested for grey water recycling. The most likely, in cost terms, would be a deep bed sand filter, with automatic reverse flow washing. The use of membranes, in the form of a straightforward ultrafiltration system, with prefilters, is called for where any degree of pathogen removal is required, or maybe as an MBR involving activated sludge processing if dissolved impurities must be removed. If land is available, then a reed bed provides a nice link between the collected water and the garden or greenhouse.
There is no reason why the gutters should not deliver the rainwater to the inlet of a grey water treatment plant.

A strongly related topic to grey water recycle is the potential recovery of the rainwater that falls on residential property and is largely run to waste either in soakaways in the ground or by being piped to the local sewer. Increasingly people are fitting diverter valves to the downcomers from the gutters and running the water to collecting butts, for use in garden watering. In principle, there is no reason why the gutters should not deliver the rainwater to the inlet of a grey water treatment plant, to be added to the re-use process, although economics dictate that rainwater collection with relatively simple filtration, to be used in toilet flushing only, may be the first recycling process to find wide favour.

Problems
A major problem facing the implementation of grey water recycling systems is that of human acceptance of the idea of using recycled water in this way, and getting residents accustomed to using different water inputs for different purposes. It will probably sell as a concept more easily to a single household, than to the management of a multi-apartment complex where irresponsible users are more likely.

Depending on the degree of treatment, the resultant water may still have to be contained in use, such as irrigating by

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Of domestic and commercial wastewater, around 30 or 40% is generated by toilet flushing,

A possibly greater problem lies in the logistics of the recycling system: the costs of extra piping in new houses, offices, etc, may not be too great, but the costs of addition to the huge inventory of existing houses and other residential properties would have to be supported by government subsidy if it is to be taken up in any number. The recycling of grey water would need to be done in such a way as to avoid the building up within the water use and treatment system of longlasting impurities. The use of a final, polishing filter in the treatment plant would then seem to be an essential component of the plant. It may be necessary to be able to divert some kitchen effluents away from the grey water collection, especially those containing oils or grease, or high in solids content, such as from a sink waste grinding system. It may also be necessary for the householder to change some components of dishwasher or clothes washing programmes, to reduce the load on a treatment plant. A less serious, but by no means ignorable problem is the matching of grey water supply and use. The grey water processed comes from the house, say, inclusive of bath and hand basin wash water, but the treated water is not then usable for this purpose. To stop a build up of processed grey water, then the garden will need to be watered to use up the surplus. This problem would perhaps be exacerbated by the

inclusion of rainwater in the grey water feed but it will probably be better to have too much water rather than too little in the future. Not surprisingly, the Internet is very active where grey water is concerned, but most of this activity is created by relatively small companies or by organisations concerned with alternative lifestyles. There are few entries from large water companies, nor large equipment suppliers. The implication is that the filtration industry is not giving much serious thought to grey water as a resource or as a source of business. Given the water need and the waste water quantities involved, this situation should not be allowed to continue. However, grey water recycling is not an easy option, and there are many other things that can be done before this is tried, with economising first among them, and rainwater collection just to provide toilet flushing as a reasonable compromise.

Contact: Ken Sutherland Email: ken.suth@ntlworld.com Telephone: +44 (0)1737 218868 Ken Sutherland has run his process engineering and market research consultancy, Northdoe, for 30 years. Northdoe is largely concerned with filtration and related separation technologies. He was a co-author of Elseviers Decanter Centrifuge Handbook, and has also written the second edition of Elseviers Handbook of Filter Media. More recently he has written Elseviers A to Z of Filtration, and the fifth edition of Elseviers Filters & Filtration Handbook.