KUCHING: Trienekens (Sarawak) Sdn Bhd recently upgraded its leachate wastewater treatment plant in order to accommodate higher processing capacity at increased efficiency.
MULTIPLE PROCESSES: Trained, certified and experienced treatment plant operator measures and monitors incoming wastewater, treatment process stages and final effluents.
This is in line in meeting the Environmental Quality Act (EQA) revision in Dec 2009, where it was stipulated that the removal of nutrients such as ammonia nitrogen to take effect in prevailing wastewater treatment processes.
The upgrading involves a component of Trienekens’ Kuching Integrated Waste Management Park (KIWMP) — the wastewater treatment plant is now capable of treating 600 cubic metre of leachate per day, an equivalent of 25 cubic metre per hour compared to only 14.6 cubic metre per hour before the extension.
More treatment tanks have also been added in order to further remove organic and solids or nutrients and toxic materials.
A press statement said the extended plant now involves additional chemical processes that were designed to bring about the same form of change through chemical reactions where primary and secondary treatments remove the majority of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) and suspended solids found in wastewater.
The processes, called physiochemical treatment whereby coagulation and flocculation take place in which they are used to separate the suspended solids portion from wastewater. The suspended particles vary considerably in source, composition charge, particle size, shape and density.
Wastewater treatment processes require vigilant management to ensure the protection of the water body that receives the discharge.
Though treatment rendering final effluent quality suitable for safe discharge presents a variety of challenges, Trienekens has espoused its treatments with practical, effective and cost efficient solutions in all areas of treatment stages; improving reliability of processes while meeting environmental regulatory requirements.
Ultimately, the goal of wastewater treatment is to manage wastewater effectively, economically and ecologically.
Meanwhile, leachate wastewater treatment is a multi-staged process to treat wastewater before it reenters water resources, applied to land, or reused. It is a process to improve and purify wastewater by removing most or all contaminants, making it healthy for release into the environment.
While basic wastewater treatment facilities work to reduce polluting organic and suspended solids, such technology is not static where ongoing development occurs resulting in necessitating needs to confiscate dissolved matter and toxic substances through more advanced treatment processes.
Residual substances removed must be managed before being reused or safely disposed of using biological, chemical and physical treatment techniques.
In the early 1970s, the Malaysian government took concrete steps of ecological protection by introducing a legislation called the EQA under the administration of the Department of Environment (DoE).
These standards mainly emphasise on the removal of suspended and floating materials, treatment of biodegradable organics and elimination of heavy metals.