For the treatment of domestic wastewater, the main dimensioning criterion for a biological treatment plant is the organic load resulting from the organic load per day and per inhabitant, multiplied by the number of inhabitants connected to the installation.
The GIS Biostep is a group made up of scientists, Irstea experts and water treatment professionals, meeting 3 to 4 times a year in the form of a meeting to exchange information and share experiences, on themes chosen jointly.
The wastewater treatment plant of the future will have to exploit all the potential brought by wastewater: the reuse of treated water for agriculture and industrial processes, the production of stabilized sludge for agricultural improvement, the recovery of biogas as energy source.
The development axes implemented by ONA (National Office of Sanitation, Algeria) are multiple, with in particular the development of renewable energies at the level of activated sludge treatment plants, the reuse of treated water for agriculture , and the recovery of methane (from sludge) as an energy source.
In countries with limited water resources, the reuse of wastewater appears to be a necessity.
To produce quality treated water without risk to health (and thus allow its reuse), a treatment plant must be equipped with a so-called “tertiary” treatment, which complements the secondary biological treatment (the latter allowing only a discharge to the natural environment).
