Talk:Wastewater

message: *I would remove physicology parts from the list --Melaen 23:22, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Body parts

message: * I have added a suggestion that this [= the article sewage ] be merged with wastewater.  Think there's enough overlap for these to be treated in one article.  Cphi 20:42, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sewage merge to Wastewater 

message: :UASB = Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket technology
Re the UASB merge to Wastewater:
*Strong oppose. In its previous form, yes that's a fair suggestion. But it deserves its own article. I have begun work on it. --Singkong2005 03:10, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  UASB merge to Wastewater 

message: A bit surprised that urine is presented as a contaminant at the same level as feces. Urine is sterile. ?? Thanks for explanation Basicdesign (talk) 02:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Urine contaminant

message: The article containts two lists with a notice reading "This article is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this section to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (September 2007)"
Since then apparently nobody tried to convert the lists into prose for the good reason that the information would be lost. 
I therefore suggest that the notices be removed and the content remain as lists. Is there anybody against this suggestion? Mregelsberger (talk) 16:25, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Lists - Remove related notices

message: Under the heading "Wastewater origin" one of the places waste water comes from is listed as:
Storm drains (almost anything, including cars, shopping trolleys, trees, cattle, etc.);
Cars... trees... cattle... in waste water? Doesn't sound right to me, but whatev's =]  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.150.64.207 (talk) 04:54, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interesting contaminants? 

message: I am interested in learning about the flowrates of wastewater from various sources, such as per person, per city, per country, or worldwide. One source for that information may be: http://www.eolss.net/EolssSampleChapters/C06/E6-13-04-05/E6-13-04-05-T14.htm but it is difficult to evaluate what this applies to. Can a general treatment of wastewater flowrates be added to this article? Thanks --Lbeaumont (talk) 13:14, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that it would be useful but would counsel extreme caution in the choice of references which such data would depend on. The quoted reference is from the USA where usage per head is greatly in excess of anywhere else in the world including European countries, Australia, New Zealand etc.  An approximation of the high level figure can be adduced from looking at the dry water flow sizing of sewage treatment plants and the capita served by such plants. Even here major allowances have to be made for industrial input, low quality sewerage allowing ground-water into the system, sea-water ingress in coastal towns etc. Using volumes of water supplied is also inconclusive because much water is used for industrial purposes, public space and golf course watering etc.  I suspect that the answer being sought  can be found  in the masses of data published by organisations taking a world view but is likely to be girt with very many caveats.  Velella  Velella Talk   15:43, 15 May 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I suggest against including flowrates in this article for the reasons Velella described.  The variation in sewage per capita seems insignificant in comparison to the variation in industrial wastewater, cooling water, stormwater runoff, and irrigation return flows.  Flowrates could better be included, with description of the reasons for variation, in articles devoted to a particular type of wastewater.Thewellman (talk) 23:08, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flowrates from various sources 

message: In-line reference citations should be provided for each section, and preferably for each paragraph, to improve WikiProject Engineering quality classification.Thewellman (talk) 23:08, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Referencing

message: I've just added information about pathogens that can be in wastewater; however, I have now added the same textblock also to the article on sewage and am now undecided if I should shorten it here (I don't like seeing exactly the same content in two articles...). Perhaps I should shorten it by taking out the examples of the different viruses, bacteria etc.? EMsmile (talk) 16:09, 4 June 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Info on biological pollutants (pathogens)

message: The lead paragraphs started out at 25.  I edited just now to clarifying points and reduce sentence length.  It's now 37, not significantly better.  I'll come back to this after getting some distance.  As of now, however, it's hard to see more ways of raising that readability number.  Some of the terms are multi-syllabic, which raises that Flesch number.  Sanitation is 4.  Wasterwater is 3.  Conveyance does seem replaceable, but it's such a good word:  I kept it. PlanetCare (talk) 19:38, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for those edits, PlanetCare. Your work has inspired me to do some more. E.g. that sentence on stormwater was wrongly referenced with the Eawag Compendium. I am mindful that the lead should be a SUMMARY, that's why I added a sentence about pollutants and about reuse. A bit more could be done in that respect. However, I worry a bit that the lead now has too much emphasis on sewage and sanitation (including onsite sanitation) and not enough on other types of wastewater, e.g. industrial wastewater. - Then I also had a look at the article on sewage, and find the lead there much too long and detailed. We have to be really careful that the article on wastewater does not overlap/repeat too much with the article on sewage. Bit more work required on both articles... Which one is more important? Interestingly, both have about the same views per day, about 1000. EMsmile (talk) 00:36, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Good tip on looking for overlap.  I do find that leads vary in how well they truly overview what's in the whole article. Some give too much detail, some not enough. I'll review again myself.PlanetCare (talk) 04:17, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Readability of Lead 

message: Note to self:  good to look for a shot of a water treatment facility, or of a storm drain releasing directly into a body of water.PlanetCare (talk) 04:38, 24 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  More photos would help this article 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I am just wondering if we are currently adding too much detail to the disambiguation page now if we now are listing types of industrial wastewater? Aren't we almost repeating what is in the wastewater template, i.e. here?:
Or is it a matter of the more the merrier? I am unsure what is expected of a disambiguation page. EMsmile (talk) 06:42, 25 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Please forgive my delay in responding.  I've been on the road for a few days.  I don't think duplication is an issue since the template has been removed from this page.  From my perspective, this list should contain every type of wastewater which has a separate article to establish its notability, similar to the list appearing in the article this page has replaced, although I would exclude formerly listed items having neither an article nor a source citation. Thewellman (talk) 01:38, 29 June 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  I am not sure if it's the right approach to "list every type of wastewater which has a separate article". I mean that's what the template on wastewater is for, isn't it? Why duplicate that as a bullet point list? I would only list the main, higher level ones, such as "industrial wastewater" but not all of its sub-types.
EMsmile (talk) 00:37, 15 July 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Too much detail in the disambiguation page now?

message: I am currently working with several content experts on reviewing 150 Wikipedia articles related to 3 SDGs. This project is described further here. As part of this work, I received comments by Marcos Von Sperling for the articles on wastewater, wastewater treatment, sewage treatment. I received them by e-mail in a marked up Word document so I will copy them to here. I plan to incorporate them into the article and am happy to discuss them further here. EMsmile (talk) 02:20, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: I suggest transportation is an essential part of the wastewater definition. Transportation of waste may be undesirably accidental in the case of leachate and stormwater runoff, but cooling water is intentionally used to transport waste heat away from a heat engine, similar to the way sanitary and industrial wastewaters are used to transport waste mass away from points of origin. Many environmental problems result from our inability to compartmentalize and isolate wastes at locations which might minimize the damage they cause. Thewellman (talk) 16:45, 26 July 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have re-arranged the page a bit. I think we need to stick to the textbook sources. Metcalf & Eddy talks about uses and applications, not about transport, as the main criterion to define wastewater. So I have changed that now. Secondly, I moved that sub-bullet point list to industrial wastewater and I feel that we should not include that here because after all, this is more of a disambiguation page which should point people to the right places to find out more. Otherwise we could make that sub-bullet point list longer and longer as there are so many different industries, generating so many different effluents. In any case, there is also the wastewater template at the bottom of the page where people can find more links.  EMsmile (talk) 13:03, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  I have re-arranged the page a bit to clarify the different types of surface runoff, move the wastewater treatment article link among the industrial wastewaters, and list cooling water separately because of the volumes involved and because thermal pollution deserves separate recognition from other industrial wastewater pollutants. I have restored movement to the description of wastewater. I don't understand the reluctance to emphasize movement of wastewater. Water isn't wastewater until it moves from its place of origin. Until then, it may be stored for resource recovery or reclaimed for uses like evaporative cooling, dust control, irrigation, or wildlife habitat. I have also eliminated the confusing inclusion of other wastewaters with sewage, since that can be better explained in the sewage article. Thewellman (talk) 19:41, 28 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reviewer's comments (July 2021) 

message: @ I don't agree with the change you have made for urban runoff (effectively reverting a change that I had made earlier). You made it (again): . It is not from "outdoor cleaning" it is from rainfall! See here: Urban runoff. It says there . Therefore, that's the explanation that we should use. Or have even no explanation and let people click through to the article, might be even better. EMsmile (talk) 01:35, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: @ What would you call the dry weather runoff from landscape irrigation sprinklers which lands in streets and runs off into storm drains? What would you call the runoff from car washing, sidewalk washing, and pressure washing of buildings that runs off into storm drains during dry weather? Thewellman (talk) 01:46, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
replies: text:  That's probably just part of municipal wastewater. The urban runoff article clearly refers to precipitation and wet weather events. If you think that definition is wrong, then you should say so on the talk page of urban runoff and provide relevant, current, global references. From what I can see in the literature (the current literature at least), "urban runoff" is used to mean "urban storm runoff" and is always associated with rain events. See e.g. Eawag publication on page 175 "Surface Runoff: The portion of precipitation that does not infiltrate the ground and runs overland." (here). The amount of runoff generated from rain events is probably far more significant than the wastewater generated from washing cars or buildings which is probably why urban runoff is meant to refer to rain events. But further discussion on this should take place on the talk page of urban runoff. It wouldn't be good practice to have a different explanation of "urban runoff" on the wastewater article than in the "urban runoff" article. EMsmile (talk) 02:32, 30 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Urban runoff explanation 

message: I've changed the first sentence of the lead to this "Wastewater is water generated after the use of freshwater, raw water, drinking water or saline water in a variety of deliberate applications or processes." My reasoning: I think it helps to list the possible inputs (have included saline water because of production of brine from desalination). Have added applications and processes because runoff is not really a deliberate application but just happens. - I've also changed this article to a "list" type article (as shown on the talk page). As such, we can keep it really brief. It's just an overview to point people to all the other related articles that have more details. EMsmile (talk) 10:25, 5 May 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposing a new first sentence for the lead