Early insights from the UK's groundbreaking sewage assessment

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The UK is carrying out a huge study into trace pollutants from sewage treatment works to help guide decisions on future investment. Keith Hayward reports on the project, which includes a focus on pharmaceuticals and phosphates, and its early results.

The UK's sewage assessment is pushing analytical limits (credit: Nixx Photography / Shutterstock)
The UK's sewage assessment is pushing analytical limits (credit: Nixx Photography / Shutterstock)

With a cost of around £25 million and some 650,000 chemical determinations, the study undertaken by the UK water industry from 2010 to 2012 to investigate trace pollutants discharged by sewage treatment works represented a huge undertaking.

The Chemical Investigations Programme Phase 1 aimed to give a better understanding of the demands and costs of complying with the environmental quality standards (EQSs) of EU regulations, especially in terms of the Water Framework Directive’s Priority Substances and Priority Hazardous Substances list.

‘CIP1 was a massive sampling and analysis exercise designed to determine the sources, pathways and routes of priority substances into sewage treatment works and then assess how well those substances are removed by conventional and novel treatment processes,’ explains Brian Ellor, who was the project manager for the UK water industry’s collaborative research body UKWIR on CIP1.

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Keywords: 

  • UK, municipal wastewater, sewage treatment, micropollutants, pharmaceuticals, phosphates, Atkins