What really happens with wastewater prior to disposal?

Is wastewater solidified, stabilized or both?

There are several ways to solidify and stabilize wastewater prior to disposal.

Once it is solidified and stabilized does it increase in bulk or decrease in bulk?

Let’s look at solidification and stabilization and what they mean.

Solidification refers to techniques that encapsulate the waste in a monolithic solid of high structural integrity. The encapsulation may be of fine waste particles (microencapsulation) or of a large block or container of wastes (macroencapsulation). Solidification does not necessarily involve a chemical interaction between the wastes and the solidifying reagents but may mechanically bind the waste into the monolith. Contaminant migration is restricted by vastly decreasing the surface area exposed to leaching and/or by isolating the wastes within an impervious capsule. Again, adding considerable amount of bulk to the process often adds to the cost to treat.

Stabilization refers to those techniques that reduce the hazard potential of a waste by converting the contaminants into their least soluble, mobile, or toxic form. The physical nature and handling characteristics of the waste are not necessarily changed by stabilization.

There are several ways to solidify and stabilize wastewater prior to disposal.

One would be to solidify and stabilize wastewater during remediation of a contaminated site with cement. In the industry this is called solidification/stabilization with cement (S/S with cement). It is a common method for the safe environmental remediation of contaminated water or land. This is because the cement solidifies the contaminated soil or water and prevents pollutants from moving or leaching into groundwater or streams by rain or snow-melt.

S/S as a means to solidify and stabilize wastewater was developed in the 1950s and is still widely used today to treat industrial hazardous waste and contaminated material from Brownfield sites. The main disadvantage of this method is that it adds very large quantities of bulk that needs to be disposed of in a landfill. This large and heavy amount of bulk brings the cost to treat to often unsustainable levels because of the hauling and disposal costs.

Historically fly ash, lime, sawdust and calcium oxide have also been used as additives to solidify and stabilize wastewater from treating drill cuttings and other types of wet solids. However they too produce large amounts of bulk that need to be disposed of in a landfill. Though the initial cost to treat appears low, once hauling and disposal costs are added the cost to treat rises considerably.

There are various other commercial products that have been successfully offered as alternative methods to solidify and stabilize wastewater with a significant cost savings.

The alternative methods had cost savings of as much as 1/3^rd over the use of cement, fly ash, lime, sawdust or corncobs basing the calculations on the absorption or adsorption capacity of the materials used. In addition there are concerns that the availability of fly ash may become an issue with the new round of EPA mandates on coal fired power plants.

The chart below clearly shows that the cost to treat including hauling and disposal with cement, fly ash, lime, sawdust isn’t as cheap as one would think.

As John Rooney said “the quickest way to become an old dog is to stop learning new tricks”.

If you are ready to learn more about an alternative method that has been successfully offered to treat wastewater with a significant cost savings take a look at the chart below and then contact us today.

Since 1992 Guardian has helped customers enhance their overall safety and productivity by providing practical and time-saving spill response and bulk solidification products. Our advanced technologies and skilled personnel make Guardian Environmental Technologies a perfect partner.

Call us today at (860) 350-2200. Let our innovative solutions keep you safer and save you money.

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