The small-scale approach in wastewater treatment

The wastewater treatment is an essential practice and is one of the forefront new worldwide challenges. Indeed, the today aims in wastewater management are profoundly changing. The sanitization processes are of course essential, but now some more efforts are required not only to reduce the environmental impact of the effluent regarding the receiving water body, for example in terms of organic load, but also to provide management practices to allow water recovery, recycle and reuse. This means that treated wastewater are new resources that may be reused according to their final level of quality. New technological facilities are available about, some more are expected in the near future, and innovative scaling approaches are strongly encouraged too. Actually, sometimes extensive sewage collection systems are no more cost-effective, thus decentralisation treatment processes considering small-scale wastewater treatment plants may represent a potential solution in both developed and developing countries. Furthermore, this kind of approach will strengthen those areas that are historically affected by drought phenomena or are expected to suffer from water scarcities in the near future as a consequence of climate change.