Quaternary treatment according to the proposal for a recast of the EU Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive and its monetary implications for candidate countries (e.g. Serbia)

Abstract

After 30 years the Council Directive concerning urban wastewater treatment from 1991 has been evaluated and an Impact Assessment led to a Proposal for revised regulations.Therein included are new policy options serving the purpose of addressing prevailing deficits after an overall satisfactory implementation of the Directive in EU member states.One new policy is addressing the removal of micro pollutants which are of emerging concern given the fast growth of anthropogenic pollution with pharmaceuticals,microplastics and cosmetics entering natural water bodies despite conventional (secondary & tertiary) wastewater treatment. As a solution, an additional fourth treatment stage is suggested following tertiary treatment which has so far primarily achieved nutrient removal. This leads to renewed challenges for EU member states, but even more so, for EU candidate countries, where the state of infrastructure development has yet to achieve compliance with the existent requirements according to the EU Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive. The road to EU integration for a representative EU candidate country such as Serbia is depending on the alignment to EU legislation and has faced institutional, demographic, and monetary challenges ever since its initiation.Furthermore, most of the EU candidate countries, and so does Serbia, lie within the Danube River Basin, a catchment area partially covered by EU member states, and therefore partly subject to strict environmental protection regulations. Compliance of other countries in the basin would therefore be very effective, yet costly. At the example of Serbia, the minimum capital expenditures for the implementation of the prevailing legislation according to the EU Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive would amount to a minimum 5.5 billion Euro. Depending on which method is chosen for quaternary treatment (ozonation, powdered, or activated carbon), additional investment costs are estimated to amount to 65 million Euro at the moment. Two approaches were taken to calculate the total annualized costs: the cost function form the Impact Assessment of the European Commission and an evaluation of Feasibility Studies from German wastewater treatment plants. Findings of this Master Thesis show that annual capital expenditures,however, only make up 35% of the total costs of quaternary treatment over its lifetime,and annual operational expenditures play a bigger role on the long run.