Hazardous substances in wastewater systems a delicate issue for wastewater management

Abstract: Many substances derived from human activity end up in wastewater systems at some point. A large number of different substances - up to 30,000 - are present in wastewater. Some of them are valuable, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, but there are also hazardous substances such as heavy metals and anthropogenic organic substances. To be able to utilise the wastewater nutrients on arable land (agriculture, forestry or other alternatives), it is of great importance to investigate the sources of hazardous substances in wastewater and the human activities and attitudes that brings these different substances into the wastewater systems. For management of wastewater residues it is therefore important to be able to assess both the benefits and the risks from such products. Residues from wastewater are complex mixtures of substances, which demand a multi-sided approach for solving the problem as a whole.