This document discusses single family treatment wetlands in Poland. It provides statistics on water and sewer access in Poland and notes that 15 million people lack access to sewer systems. It then discusses the need for single family treatment plants (STPs) as a solution. It describes three configurations of STPs tested in the town of Stężyca involving septic tanks and vertical and horizontal flow treatment wetlands. The results over four years showed good removal of organic matter, total nitrogen, and total phosphorus. Configuration II with sequential vertical flow beds performed best. Proper pre-treatment and sufficient contact time were important. STPs were an effective sustainable solution but owners were not willing to use reed sludge beds and authorities

1. Single family treatment wetlands
progress in Poland
Magdalena Gajewska
Sustainable Sanitation Workshop, 4-5 April 2014, Ljubljana, Slovenia

2. 2006 2008 2010 2012
94.9 95.2 95.3 97.1
72.8 74.7 75.2 76.2
Central water system
city village
2006 2008 2010 2012
84.8 85.8 86.1 86.5
20.2 23.5 24.8 29.4
Central sewer system
city village
PRESENT SITUATION
Problem with wastewater treatment
in rural areas with scattered buildings

3. According to the Polish Water Management Board, at present there are 1636
agglomerations, with 23 million of people connected to sewerage systems. It
means that the other 15 million of people in Poland do not use sewerage
systems. According to the new administration regulations, building of sewerage
systems is not profitable if there are less than 120 inhabitants per 1 km of
newly constructed system.
PRESENT SITUATIONS
Typical solution for scattered development =
cesspools
In many cases leaking cesspools!!!!!!!!!!

4. National Program for Municipal Wastewater
Treatment does not apply to agglomerations with
less than 2000 inhabitants.
What means:
• 5.0 million people in our country use the vacuum
truck,
• 3.85 million people have no access to any
wastewater services,
• 5.5 million inhabitants is located outside of any
program

5. Threats
• Pollution of surface and groundwater with
disordered wastewater management.
• Restrict access to clean water, which can cause
epidemiological risks.
• Aggravated aesthetic and landscape areas
attractive in terms of recreational and tourism
to be reliable.

6. There is an urgent need to build
single family treatment plants
existing single family
STP
needs for single
family STP

7. Requirements
• The amount of wastwater – 7.5 m3/day but
5.0 m3/day !!!
• Four samples yearly
• BOD 5 < 40 mg O2/ l ; COD < 150 mg O2/ l ;
• TSS < 50 mg O2/ l ;
• TN < 30 mg N/ l and TP < 5 mgP/l !!!
• There is no minimum of reduction !
• BUT when discharge of wastewater into the ground
on the property (settelment)- then BOD5 min. 20%
reduction and TSS - 50 % of reduction

8. Possible solutions
Single Family Tretment Plants (SF TPs)
Natural methods Conventional methods
Drain system
Sand filter
Treatment wetlands
Bio-filters- thrikling filters
Activated sludge
All of them have pros and cons, the point is to select this one which will
be BAT according to LCA

9. Hanna Obarska-Pempkowiak
Magdalena Gajewska
Ewa Wojciechowska
Arkadiusz Ostojski
As part of the project "Innovative solution for wastewater management in rural
areas" NORWET (co-financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education
No. E033/P01/2008/02 and the EEA Financial Mechanism and the Norwegian
Financial Mechanism No. PL0271) team of Department of Water and
Wastewater Technology and the Department of Sanitary Engineering Gdansk
University of Technology has developed a concept and implemented a model of
waste water and sludge for the individual household in the community Stężyca.

10. PL0271sponsoredbyagrantfrom
IcelandLiechtensteinNorway
throughtEEAFinancialMechanism
andNorwegianFinancialMechanism
NORWET
FARM
DOMESTIC SEWAGE
SEPTIC TANK
TREATMENT
WETLANDVF or HF beds
(3 CONFIGURATIONS)
REED BEDS for sludge
dewatering and
mineralization
SEWAGE SLUDGE
REED
COMPOST
OUTFLOW
SEEPAGE
POND
Conception of the complete sewage-sludge management system for
a single family household

12. PL0271sponsoredbyagrantfrom
IcelandLiechtensteinNorway
throughtEEAFinancialMechanism
andNorwegianFinancialMechanism
NORWET
Community Stężyca, Pommerania Region

13. PL0271sponsoredbyagrantfrom
IcelandLiechtensteinNorway
throughtEEAFinancialMechanism
andNorwegianFinancialMechanism
NORWET
Community Stężyca, Pommerania Region
9326 inhabitants (A.D. 2009)
surface area 16 032 ha
two biggest villages:
Stężyca 1806 inhabitants, Kamienica
Szlachecka 813 inhabitants
agriculture, forrestry, tourism, agrotourism
Kaszubian Lake District
difficult terrain conditions for building sewarage
system (denivalation ca. 168 m)

14. Location of single-farm treatment wetlands in Stężyca Community
PL0271sponsoredbyagrantfrom
IcelandLiechtensteinNorway
throughtEEAFinancialMechanism
andNorwegianFinancialMechanism
NORWET
Ostrowo
69 inhabitants
4 TWs
Bolwerk
59 inhabitants
1 TW
Borucino
323 inhabitants
2 TWs
Łączyno
301 inhabitants
2 TWs

15. PL0271sponsoredbyagrantfrom
IcelandLiechtensteinNorway
throughtEEAFinancialMechanism
andNorwegianFinancialMechanism
NORWET
the impact of septic tank volume – retention time on treatment
process and comparison with sequential VF beds (configuration II)
and HF bed (configuration III)
?
VF Pond
pondpondSeptic tank
Configuration I

16. PL0271sponsoredbyagrantfrom
IcelandLiechtensteinNorway
throughtEEAFinancialMechanism
andNorwegianFinancialMechanism
NORWET
?
Is it better to have 1 or 2 VF
beds
Configuration
II
pond
Septic tank

17. PL0271sponsoredbyagrantfrom
IcelandLiechtensteinNorway
throughtEEAFinancialMechanism
andNorwegianFinancialMechanism
NORWET
?
-prefilter
- comparison of VF and HF
Configuration
III
pond
Septic tank

18. 0
100
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1100
1200
Configuration I Configuration II Configuration III
COD in influent, mg/l 1 2 3
0
20
40
60
80
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120
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160
180
200
Configuration I Configuration II Configuration III
COD in effluent, mg/l 1 2 3
0.0
10.0
20.0
30.0
40.0
50.0
60.0
70.0
80.0
90.0
100.0
Configuration I Configuration II Configuration III
COD efficency removal, % 1 2 3 mean
Organic matter

19. 0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
Configuration I Configuration II Configuration III
TN in influent, mg/l 1 2 3
0
10
20
30
40
50
Configuration I Configuration II Configuration III
TN in effluent, mg/l 1 2 3
0.0
10.0
20.0
30.0
40.0
50.0
60.0
70.0
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90.0
100.0
Configuration I Configuration II Configuration III
TN efficency removal, % Serie1 Serie2 Serie3 Serie4
Total nitrogen

20. Single Family TWs

21. CONCLUSIONS
•The application of treatment wetlands for single-family effluent is
an effective and sustainable solution for wastewater treatment in the rural
areas.
•In first two years of operation good treatment effectiveness BOD 64.0-92.0%,
TN 44.0-77.0%, TP 24.0-66.0% was observed.
• After three year the efficiency removal of organic and TN increased 12-20
% except TP
• In fourth year of explanation the amount of nitrate increased significantly
in the effluent from SFTWs with SSVF beds
•Comparing the achieved efficiency removal in three applied configuration
shows:
importance of TSS removal in pre-filter before application of TWs
double contact time in sequentially working VSSF beds improve the
efficiency removal up to 20% in comparison to the efficiency of single VSSF
with bigger unit area.

22. Lesson Learn:
The owners are :
-willing to install and build the SF TWs – proud of them
-not willing to use reed sludge daring beds for primary
sludge
-The authorities has no knowledge about what is TW
(think like it is drainage ) BOOK
-Wastewater consumption is less than 100 l/pe and thus
the sewage are more dense so no rules like DWA 2006
or other could be apply during designing

23. Team distinction for
development of an
innovative technical solution
entitled ’Implementation and
Promotion of Ecological
Engineering Basing on
Sewage Treatment Plants’ In
the competition for Master of
Technology in academic year
2011/2012.