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Waste Water Treatment Standards

As with many other products and processes, standards are important in waste water treatment. Waste water includes many contaminants and consists of human household waste and storm runoff from roads and roofs. The importance of clean water is not limited to health concerns. The fishing industry is dependent on clean water, as well as sport fishing enthusiasts, wildlife and recreational facilities. Waste water treatment standards provide minimum requirements for related equipment to perform properly to remove dangerous contaminants.

  1. Background

    • There are ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standards for many products, which describe methods of testing and list criteria to demonstrate their compliance. An accredited organization of the ANSI, the NSF (National Sanitation Foundation) has issued waste water treatment standards through its NSF Joint Committee on Wastewater Technology. The committee is composed of 12 seats each from industry, public health and user communities that decide on and vote for needed standards. There are several standards related to waste water treatment systems.

    Residential treatment standards

    • NSF/ANSI Standard 40 is intended for residential waste water treatment systems with capacities from 400 to 1,500 gallons. The standard, which applies to any type of system, provides evaluation methods for tests such as whether a treatment system can produce an acceptable quality of effluent. For six months, the system being tested is subjected to various stress conditions such as power outages. Structural integrity, leakage, noise, electrical certification, failure sensing and signaling equipment and service labels must also meet minimum requirements.

    Treatment systems without liquid media

    • Standard 41 is for waste water treatment systems without a liquid saturated media to store or treat human waste or such waste mixed with organic household materials. Composting toilets are considered this type of system. Also requiring six months of performance testing, this standard covers residential, cottage and day-use park classes. Appropriate design loading and stress testing are incorporated. To verify testing, at least one system must be evaluated in a laboratory, and three have to be tested where they would be intended for use.

    Components

    • Components of waste water treatment systems are covered under Standard 46, which applies to grinder pumps, septic tank effluent filters, chlorination devices and UV disinfection devices. Another waste water treatment standard is Standard 245. This is for residential systems designed to provide for nitrogen production. The standard also involves the same type of testing as Standard 40, for which a product must already be certified or be in the process of certification. Tests for both standards can run simultaneously.

    Potential

    • The NSF and ANSI are constantly working on new standards. One is Standard 240 for gravelless trench products used as an alternative to stone or gravel trenches. NSF protocols, similar to standards, are reviewed by a technical panel of experts rather than a committee. Protocol P150 is one example, which evaluates how tissue products affect septic systems. Another is NSF P157 Electrical Incinerating Toilets, which covers requirements for materials, design and construction, performance and cleanability of electrical incinerating devices for toilets.

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