Where do phosphates come from in wastewater?

Where do phosphates come from in wastewater?

Human waste products are one of the natural sources of phosphorus. A person releases about 1.5 g of this trace element per day. In addition, nutrients are introduced from household chemicals.

Most households and enterprises send wastewater to a centralized wastewater treatment plant. These effluents contain phosphorus of biological origin, as well as phosphate components of detergents, food products, etc. Even modern water treatment systems or water softener plants are not always able to cope with the amount of pollution, as for the Pakistani treatment facilities, their work, of course, requires modernization. But we will talk about this below.

Rock destruction:

Phosphorus is introduced into the soil and water from natural minerals. These processes vary by region. Where there are deposits of phosphorites and apatites, there will be observed natural processes of increased phosphate uptake into water.

Agricultural activities:

Manure and fertilizers are one of the main sources of nutrient nitrogen and phosphorus. When plants are not able to process all introduced substances, they remain in the soil and are washed off to nearby water bodies during rain or snowmelt, which leads to their eutrophication. A number of techniques can be used to minimize this effect:

• optimization of fertilizer application by quantity, season, etc.
• sowing fields with perennial plants or crop rotation to avoid periods of non-sowing fields not sown, since it is during this period that maximum surface erosion is observed and, accordingly, the components are washed off into water;
• planting trees and bushes at the borders of fields will be effective; they are able to remove excess fertilizer;
• fencing the shores of ponds from access to cattle.

Storm water:

When rainwater is washed away from the surface of built-up land plots of various kinds of pollution, including nutrients, they are usually discharged into the water through a system of storm sewers without treatment.

Regional issues:

The above problems and solutions concerned the EU countries and the USA. Now let’s look at Pakistani realities. In addition to the above, we have many additional factors that differ from global trends.

Drains of car washes that are discharged directly into storm sewers. Given the fact that the phosphate content of such detergents is practically not standardized, one car wash that drains water without any cleaning can be harmful to more than two apartment buildings.

Discharge of domestic and industrial effluents directly into water bodies without any purification steps. This is widely practiced in the mountains and on the coast of the Azov and Black Seas. If in the rivers of western Ukraine, due to the relatively small population density, this does not lead to critical problems, then the sea coasts suffer greatly as a result of such actions.

The need for modernization of treatment facilities in large cities is obvious, this is due both to the fact that old technologies are able to remove only a small part of phosphates, and to the fact that the population density over the past 30 years has increased by 1.5 – 3 times. 

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