Treatment of Dairy Wastewater Using Constructed Wetland

Abstract

Naturally existing wetlands have been used for dumping various types of wastewaters and have been promised to dispose of these wastewaters. As a matter of fact, in some areas, natural wetlands still serve this purpose solely and are nothing more than dumping sites. However, extensive research suggested the use of Wetlands for Treatment purposes. Understanding the dynamics of the processes in natural wetlands leads to the use of those processes in a more engineered and designed manner increasing their viability and even allowing us to optimize them for our specific needs. Thus, an engineered use of the physical, chemical, and biological processes of a natural wetland to best suit our needs is called a constructed or man-made wetland. These Constructed Wetlands provide us the liberty to optimize their size, type of flow, and even vegetation fully as per our needs and requirements, unlike natural wetlands. As revealed by the United Nations World Water Development Report in 2018, almost 6 billion individuals will experience the ill effects of clean water shortage by 2050. Extensive research on the treatment of different types of wastewater has been done in the past including municipal as well as industrial wastewater. Industrial wastewater and its ineffective disposal are a great threat to the environment and sustainability. The dairy industry is very intensive on the use of water and approximately generates 0.2-10L of wastewater for every liter of milk that is processed. Depending on the type of products and processes in the industry the wastewater composition can vary widely and is typically characterized by huge organic content and is rich in nutrients. Wetlands employing various vegetative and microbial activities make use of such nutrient-laden wastewater and thrive on it creating a form of chain reaction. The roots and bacteria in the soil suck the nutrients and use them as their fuel and food. Thus, the role of macrophytes also becomes important. One problem of using constructed wetlands for dairy wastewater is the unnecessary breeding of mosquitoes and foul odours which are to be mitigated for effective application and sustainability. Dairy wastewater is very intensive on the use of water and Constructed Wetlands can prove to be an eco-friendly and viable alternative to conventional methods

Keywords: Wetlands, environment, dairy wastewater, treatment, macrophytes, constructed wetlands