Prototype Design of a Wastewater Collection System for Selected Households

International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI) | Volume VI, Issue VI, June 2019 | ISSN 2321–2705

Prototype Design of a Wastewater Collection System for Selected Households

Eunice Mac Pepple and Celestine Egwuonwu

Department of Agricultural and Bioresources Engineering, Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria

Abstract- A prototype design of a gravity sewage collection system was achieved for selected households in Opobo town, Rivers State, Nigeria. This was done as a bid to mitigate the present practice of direct disposal of domestic wastewater into the surrounding waters of the study area, due to very limited modern sanitary facilities. SewerCAD was used to design the gravity sewer system with constraints for velocity, slope and depth of cover. The total design flow was 56,858 litres/day,and the total pipe length 208.3 m. The designed manholes are 8 in number with a lone outfall. The outcome of the design established that a gravity sewer network can be constructed for low-income densely populated rural or peri-urban communities. It is recommended that an efficient wastewater collection system for sewage and sullage be designed and implemented not just for selected households in the study area, but for the entire town.

Keywords: Wastewater; Collection system; Raw sewage; Riverine communities; Opobo Town; gravity sewer.

I. INTRODUCTION

Forty per cent of the world’s population live within 60 km of the sea, thus the potential for adverse human impacts on the marine environment is very high. This occurs because among other impacts,wastewater from coastal cities and towns are often discharged, most times without any form of treatment, into the sea or an estuary via an outfall pipe [10].
According to [10], domestic wastewater is the water that has been used by a community and which contains all the materials added to the water during its use. It is thus composed of human body wastes(faeces, blood and urine) together with the water used for flushing toilets, and sullage, which is the wastewater resulting from personal washing, laundry, food preparation and the cleaning of kitchen utensils.
Faecal matter affects the economic and ecological health of any water body [12].Feaces and, to a lesser extent, urine contains many millions of intestinal bacteria and smaller numbers of other organisms. Other organic and inorganic substances present in domestic wastewater are carbohydrates, fats, proteins, amino acids, volatile acids, oil and grease, soaps, detergents, food substances, sodium, calcium, potassium, magnesium, chlorine, sulphur, phosphate, bicarbonate, ammonium salts and heavy metals[11] and [1].

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