Stringent Effluentnorms

Examined by EPAS

Environmental legislation steers industry to comply with stringent standards and to aim for a continuous improvement of the discharge water quality.
To meet these requirements, wastewater treatment cannot be isolated from production.

BAT-study

EPAS will perform a BAT (Best Available Technology) evaluation of the production facilities and the wastewater treatment plant.

This can be combined with an environmental impact analysis of the discharge of the effluent in surface water. BAT evaluation enables EPAS not only to match the treatment efforts with the ecological needs, but also to successfully negotiate site specific ecological risk based standards for treatment effluents.

The following steps are taken:

Whole effluent testing - Toxicity Identification Evaluation

Additional and Advanced Treatment

If stringent limits can not be met by the existing treatment facilitity or when conventional treatment technologies (physico-chemical or biological) do not suffice, EPAS can examine if additional or advanced treatment techniques are economically and technically feasible conform to the BAT-principle. EPAS has highly equipped laboratory and pilot-scale testing infrastructure to examine the possibilities of these technologies.

Whole effluent testing - Toxicity Identification Evaluation

Whole effluent toxicity test results are an integral took in the assessment of water quality. For the protection of aquatic life, this integrated strategy includes the use of three control approaches: the chemical-specific control approach, the WET control approach, and the biological criteria/bioassessment approach.

The two primary advantages of using WET controls over individual, chemical-specific controls are WET tests evaluate the integrated effects of all chemical(s) in the aqueous sample. Another advantage to using WET testing is that it enables prediction and avoidance of a toxic impact before the detrimental impact might occur (i.e., after the aquatic population in the receiving water has experienced prolonged exposure to such toxicity).

Reliance solely on chemical-specific numeric criteria or bioassessments could result in a considerably less toxics control program.