As the year comes to an end, we have successfully concluded the project
"Up-to-date Approaches for Managing Wastewater Discharges from Industrial Clusters into Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants to safeguard Human Health and the Environment – Phase II" (original in German “Zeitgemäßer Umgang mit Abwassereinleitungen aus Industrieclustern in kommunale Kläranlagen zum Schutz von Mensch und Umwelt – Phase II”).
Supported by the Bundesministerium für Land- & Forstwirtschaft, Klima- & Umweltschutz, Regionen & Wasserwirtschaft, the project advanced two central goals:
- Developing criteria and methods for a practical guideline to support a risk-based assessment of indirect wastewater discharges from industrial clusters and for developing a monitoring strategy
- Evaluating complementary analytical approaches for monitoring highly variable industrial effluents, applying broad methods such as non-target screening and effect-based methods (CALUX®), tested at an industrial park and its associated municipal wastewater treatment plant.
Some of the key insights include: - The developed guideline provides a structured and comprehensive framework that integrates chemical legislation and principles of the EU Industrial Emissions Directive guidance, enabling a transparent and risk-based management of heterogeneous indirect discharges from industrial clusters.
- Non-target screening provides enhanced insight into substance patterns and temporal or process-related dynamics that conventional targeted analytics cannot capture.
Effect-based methods indicate a decline in cytotoxicity along the treatment train from the industrial cluster to the municipal wastewater treatment plant effluent, whereas for other modes of action additional investigation is required.
The full report (in German) is available here:https://www.bmluk.gv.at/service/publikationen/wasser/industriecluster-endbericht-phase-ii.html