The workers that work at a water treatment plant end up having to go through a long grueling process, which is called water treatment. There are tons of steps in treating water, and the process in its entirety takes anywhere from 24 to 36 hours before it is reusable. They take a lot of time and energy to clean our water so that we can reuse, re-drink, and re-bathe in sewage water. Water treatment is a necessary process that without which we may not be able to have viable drinking water.
Pre-Treatment
The first step in the water treatment plant is to gather the water from all the toilets or showers in the water plants area. After the water makes it to the treatment plant, then they are put into the pretreatment phase, where separation happens. With a process called bar screens, they remove most of the waste from the water or at least the sewage and object part of what’s in the toilet. After the separation happens, the waste is taken to a junkyard or trash pile to be disposed of. Then the sewage water that remains is then sifted into the next are called grit chambers. The grit chambers are the next phase, and the chambers help to remove sand, and anything hard to remove with chemicals, or will jam up the filters.
Secondary Treatment
After the pretreatment, they move onto the next phase called secondary treatment. Secondary treatment is where the water is drained out of the grit chambers and placed into the aeration basins. The aeration basins are used by adding oxygen and bacteria into the water that eat most of the remaining sewage from the water. The bacteria love to eat the excrement, and oxygen allows them to have a safe environment to eat. After the aeration basins, they place the water into the secondary clarifier, which does the same thing as the aeration basins, but with more bacteria. Then it is placed in a primary clarifier, which at this point has removed 85% of the waste and is now unharmful to humans. However, the job isn’t done here. They need to place them into filters.
Filtering
The final part of this process is known as filtering. At this point, all more significant objects and 90% of waste materials are removed from the water itself. Screening is where the water treatment plant adds in the chemicals. There are over 14,500 water treatment plants across the United States alone, and they all have different chemicals they use. However, the three most commonly used chemicals for filtration are Chlorine, Ozone, and Ultra-violet. The compounds help to weed out the rest of the sewage from the water so that it can finally be drinkable water again. This process also kills off all the bacteria that had eaten the majority of the wastewater. The chemicals ensure that the water cannot become harmful to the human body in any way. After filtering, it is greenlit to go and reaches the final process called “Effluent Release.” This process is the after product of the treatment process and is released into streams, lakes, rivers, and scarce water locations so that they have drinkable water. It is also sent in this process to your water pipes, where you will reuse the water to drink, flush, and even shower.
Why is Water Treatment Important?
Water treatment is an essential and vital part of life. Without the water treatment process, we would’ve run out of usable and drinkable water by now. Think of it this way. Without water, we would have to all go to the ocean to bathe so that we have drinkable water to consume. With this process, we can drink the water, use the water, and not worry about being wasteful, because of the treatment plant all of that is possible. It is a hard job, but someone has to do it, and thank god they do because without this process, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy hot showers, flushable toilets, or filtered water.
Meruscan help with many water treatment options. Many types of food and drinks are made with this reusable water, and nobody notices or takes a second to think about how they have sustainable and reusable water.
