Hi everyone. I hope I am in the proper forum. Can anyone help me come up with a design for a "compact" wastewater treatment plant to cater to a healthcare facility. I would say compact as space is really limited for a full scale treatment plant. Any Environmental Engineers in the fold?

Thanks,
stryker

Hi everyone. I hope I am in the proper forum. Can anyone help me come up with a design for a "compact" wastewater treatment plant to cater to a healthcare facility. I would say compact as space is really limited for a full scale treatment plant. Any Environmental Engineers in the fold?

Thanks,
stryker"compact" is a relative term. How many beds in this facility? Is it a full service hospital or a minimal service nursing home? - both are "healthcare facilities" but one uses a lot more water than the other.

Where will the effluent go? Will there be a lot of drugs, biohazards, and toxic wastes to consider in the treatment?

Where will the solid wastes go once they are separated from the waste water?

Is future expandability a consideration?

What kind of budget do you have (original cost, maintenance, utilities to operate?)

Do you want to consider a "showpiece" operation where you can get subsidies from manufacturers and organizations for having and displaying a solution incorporating all the latest innovations in wastewater treatment, including environmental considerations of secondary use of effluent and solids?

In the Quality arena, we often use the term FMEA (failure mode & effects analysis), but FMEA is really only a specialized subset of the risk analysis brainstorming many people with organized thinking do when trying to synthesize a large number of variables into one, BEST plan or process.

For instance, a quick "google" of "wastewater treatment" turns up a mind boggling number of hits. It appears you have a little homework to do to narrow the field to those things which fit your needs and budget best.

I did say "compact" as I was only considering the limited space. Yes Wes, we are a full service facility. After treatment, the effluent would go to the storm drain that actually drains in to the sea. Sludge would be considered to be disposed off by licensed transporters or be used for fertilizer. Expansion would not be considered. We are a 100-bed capacity facility with a possible expansion to 200-bed in the future.
We hope to see a design with a minimal budget. Frankly speaking our city has NO treatment facility for waste water while our environmental laws mandate us to have a treatment facility. Sorry Wes, I'm in the Philippines, I guess you get the picture why very little care about our environment.
I tried googling and right you are as I came up with mind boggling ready made structures. I'm not sure these are available locally and what about maintenance. Speaking about quality arena in your terms I'm still a nerd on this topic. We have laws to follow here, but still implementation has to be done and strictly followed.

Regards,
stryker

I did say "compact" as I was only considering the limited space. Yes Wes, we are a full service facility. After treatment, the effluent would go to the storm drain that actually drains in to the sea. Sludge would be considered to be disposed off by licensed transporters or be used for fertilizer. Expansion would not be considered. We are a 100-bed capacity facility with a possible expansion to 200-bed in the future.
We hope to see a design with a minimal budget. Frankly speaking our city has NO treatment facility for waste water while our environmental laws mandate us to have a treatment facility. Sorry Wes, I'm in the Philippines, I guess you get the picture why very little care about our environment.
I tried googling and right you are as I came up with mind boggling ready made structures. I'm not sure these are available locally and what about maintenance. Speaking about quality arena in your terms I'm still a nerd on this topic. We have laws to follow here, but still implementation has to be done and strictly followed.

Regards,
stryker
I suspected as much!

The critical thing about many wastewater treatment plants is they require some specialized maintenance. The overriding situation is there is an extremely high turnover of qualified people with smaller plants because they are continually in demand at larger facilities which pay more money.

I agree there are some "off-the-shelf" (not literally, but built to cookie cutter design with readily available materials) In the past, these may have had the advantage of being rapidly deployed and relatively inexpensive, but some folks complained they were expensive to operate and maintain.

I empathize with your plight - I've had some similar tight budget, constituent apathy situations in my career, too. I regret telling you there is no easy solution.

One avenue I do advocate is enlisting the aid of a Philippine university to turn some grad students loose on seeking NGOs (non-governmental organizations) and commercial organizations who will participate with grants and donations of equipment and supplies in return for publicity consideration in building and operating a "gem in the Pacific." This is certainly the kind of project that can and should be replicated world-wide to reduce the risk of spreading disease and pollution which results in much greater cost than the price of building and operating sewage treatment facilities. I have seen some demonstrations where the designers and developers of some sewage treatment projects actually dip a glass into the effluent stream and take a drink - certainly a powerful public relations tool - water fit for drinking is certainly NOT going to spoil the fishing for the local population, nor cause debilitating disease. (Takes away a lot of the "not in my back yard" bias of the local population, especially if the processing odors can be reduced as well.)

Good luck! You'll need it. Welcome to the Cove!:bigwave:

I can envision a number of prospective organizations (even some wealthy individuals) ranging from "save the ocean" and "stop global pollution" groups to some corporations closely allied with and subsidized by their governments who might find some political gold in supplying expertise and funds toward your project.