Water is one of the essential sources for the life of every living being, but today it is increasingly compromised because of pollution due to the introduction of harmful substances produced by anthropic activities [1] into rivers and aquifers. Among these harmful substances drugs are also included. Proper drug treatment requires that they must be disposed of in a special containers in pharmaci...

This work reports some reflections about the European and Italian regulation on sewage sludge. In Europe, the progressive augment of the production of sludge from municipal wastewater treatment plants has recently led to a growing attention about management of this type of solid matrix. European Directives and Italian guidelines stimulated reuse of sewage sludge on agricultural soils or in comp...

Our knowledge base regarding the presence and significance of chemicals foreign to the subsurface environment is large and growing—the papers in this volume serving as testament. However, complex questions with few answers surround the unknowns regarding the potential for environmental or human health effects from trace levels of xenobiotics in ground water, especially ground water augmented wi...

The application of modern molecular techniques has led to the identification, in situ quantification, and partial ecophysiological characterisation of bacteria responsible for bulking and foaming or for nutrient removal in sewage treatment systems. Unexpectedly, previously unrecognised, yet uncultured bacteria were demonstrated to catalyse nitrogen and phosphorous removal in activated-sludge an...

Purpose: In face of the need for sustainable solutions in the field of food waste management, the use of food waste disposal units (FWDs) and the anaerobic co-digestion of food waste with sewage sludge have recently been attracting more attention as an alternative to landfill. Methods: In this study a sustainability framework was developed in order to aid decision making in food waste managemen...

Fecal coliform bacteria are widely used as indicators of sewage contamination in surface water. However, there are some disadvantages in these microbial techniques including time consuming (18-48h) and inability in discriminating between human and animal fecal material sources. Therefore, it is necessary to seek a more specific indicator of human sanitary waste. In this study, the feasibility w...

water quality aspect with regard to dissolved oxygen was studied for a 24 kilometer stretch of malaprabha river in karnataka state, india. main objective of the research was to simulate the predicted dissolved oxygen depletion due to the waste load allocation in the river with the ambient observed values of dissolved oxygen, and to ascertain the application of mathematical modeling for predicti...

This is a literature review for the year 2015 and contains information specifically associated with suspended growth processes including activated sludge, upflow anaerobic sludge blanket, and sequencing batch reactors. The review encompasses modeling and kinetics, nutrient removal, system design and operation. Compared to past reviews, many topics show increase in activity in 2015. These includ...