Where does wastewater come? This basic question shall be answered if we want to design a wastewater treatment system. Source of wastewater, its characteristics, and its flow rate, will influence the type of technology to treat the wastewater.
Components that make up the wastewater depend on the type of collection systems. Urban wastewater that contribute to a wastewater treatment is originated from the following three main resources:
- Domestic (also called sanitary) wastewater. This type of wastewater is discharged from residential districts, commercial districts, institutional facilities, or recreational facilities.
- Industrial wastewater. Wastewater which predominantly consists of industrial waste.
- Infiltration/inflow.
- Infiltration is water entering a sewer system including service connections, defective pipes, pipe joints or manhole walls.
- Inflow is the water discharged into a sewer system from roof leader, cellar, yard and area drains, foundation drains, cooling water discharges, drains from springs and swampy area, manhole covers, cross connections from storm and combined sewers.