INTRODUCTION
Why New Sanitation?
Our waste water system has evolved over many decades. Initially, domestic waste water was simply transported to locations outside towns and cities through simple sewers, whereas today the waste water system consists of an advanced sewerage system leading the water to large-scale, state-of-the-art waste water treatment plants. Discharges from the water chain into the surface water have thus decreased significantly during the past few decades. However, the remaining emissions from the chain are still a constant source of concern – partly due to increasingly strict requirements – not just with regard to pollution from phosphates and nitrates, heavy metals and organic micro-pollutants, but also from drugs and hormone disrupting substances. This demands continuous modernization and innovation, which does, however, lead to the feeling that we are reaching the ceiling of possibilities of our present large-scale, end-of-pipe oriented purification techniques.
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This feeling has given rise to a quest for new sanitation concepts, focusing increasingly on the possibilities of a source-oriented and partly also a decentralized approach. New sanitation concepts should contribute towards the targets of the Water Framework Directive, reduce energy consumption and may even yield energy and lead to the recovery of resources.
STOWA supports this development by initiating and supervising research and pilot projects, by coordinating the developments through the Coordinating Body for the Development of New Sanitation Systems in the Netherlands (abbreviated to ‘Coordinating Body ONSS’) and by organizing the dissemination of knowledge.
On this website, you will find all information on the activities of the Coordinating Body, the research and pilot projects and the knowledge that is currently available. |