Wastewater infrastructure basically refers to units of technology that are involved in the treating wastewater for transporting it to cities and residential areas surrounding the cities. Wastewater infrastructure includes wastewater treatment plants and sewer network.
Over time problems arise with the wastewater infrastructure because a huge costs is attributed to the maintenance of the sewer pipes in the case of a pipe being blocked or leaking or that it needs an upgrade. Also to meet the needs of a growing population building sewer networks is expensive especially taking into consideration when building sewers than span thousands of kilometres which are prone to overflows and blockages. Another challenge on top of this is also finding the adequately trained individuals who are willing to put in very long hours into this work is a very tough challenge. Staff alone accounts 30% of costs in wastewater infrastructure. A possible solution is building separate sewer networks instead of a giant network spanning over extremely large distance which reduces costs mainly on distance and travelling back and forth for maintenance of the sewer pipes. Increased automation of machinery may reduce the number of staff and hours spent on site.
Another problem that we have to deal with is the expansion of wastewater treatments due to increasing populations. We have the issue of exponentially increasing population size so our needs for a larger and more efficient wastewater treatments is more than ever. Luckily for us Australia is a huge country with a relatively very small population and finding large areas for expansion of wastewater treatments isn’t an issue for us. The only concern is the costs involved. Currently we do not have an issue of a major concern for us. But lets say that what if our population was huge so what happens then? If this is the case then a possible solution to this maybe having mini built-in self reliant wastewater treatment at every household capable of running itself with minimal issues. This way we can take off a lot of stress in having more treatment plants. Also there are many proposals made into making the wastewater plants much more efficient and quicker to process wastewater.
Last but not the least that is of the biggest concern for me is really the production and disposal of sludge from wastewater plants. Sludge is basically what is pulled out from wastewater. Speculating far into the future where Australia becomes heavily population, the amount of sludge produced will be at ridiculously high levels and finding a safe and a sufficient area of land for disposal will be a challenge. There’s only so much a land available for sludge disposal and eventually we find have to find another place to dispose the sludge and hopefully it will not be dumped in the ocean. The only solution I can possibly imagine to tackle this is to be able to recycle or transform the high volume of sludge into beneficial bio-components.
The biggest concern that we need to focus are the keeping up with the costs of wastewater infrastructure and keeping up with the latest technology is crucial for meeting the needs of the future generations. Also we must find a way to make use of excess sludge rather letting it sit in a dump site because there will be a time one day where finding enough land area to dump the waste may be difficult and insufficient especially if we have large population. The key to solving these issues is developing innovative ideas on wastewater infrastructure upgrades and applying these innovative ideas in order to keep up with the demands efficiently.
Wastewater Engineering 
I thought it was interesting that you pointed out staff costs, I never thought they accounted for 30% of infrastructure costs. it’s definitely something that needs to be considered when we plan our future. Do you think automation of the work required would reduce the amount of money required?
I enjoyed your blog, so good work ! 🙂
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really interesting discussion. I agree with the points you raised about what needs to be done. like development of technology!
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Some good points noted in your blog, especially with increasing population and demand for larger wastewater treatment systems – I like the idea of mini built-in self reliant wastewater treatment at every household that is capable of running itself. Overall an interesting blog/vlog.
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Wastewater infrastructure involves a huge cost, so huge that a common citizen hasn’t got the slightest clue as how much it may be. A shocking fact is that infrastructure may account up to 5% of our economy which is very big. I agree with all your points and the most important of them all in the sludge dumping. It is a big concern because sludge is for most part un-recyclable and useless. We better find a quick fix for this otherwise the only future for us is a wasteland.
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