Domestic wastewater treatment in the Republic of Serbia

Abstract

Wastewater collection and treatment have a wide range of impacts on the environment and the economy, both locally and globally. The lack of a sewage system outside of central urban areas and the insufficient number of constructed and operative wastewater treatment plants are leading problems concerning the management and treatment of municipal, domestic, and industrial wastewater in the Republic of Serbia. In the Republic of Serbia, about 418 million m3 of wastewater was discharged in 2019, from which 308 million m3 was wastewater from municipalities with a public sewage system. Currently, only about 64 % of the population has a connection to the public sewage system and Serbia treats approximately 48 million m3 of wastewater. The highest number of people, about 44% of the population, lives in rural settlements and discharges wastewater from their households into septic tanks. For small communities in the rural settlements, on‐site treatment technologies using natural systems are a highly efficient, adequate, and inexpensive treatment. This paper provides an overview of the situation in the wastewater sector in the Republic of Serbia and discusses on‐site treatment technologies and/or the possibility of reuse of household wastewater in rural settlements that aren’t connected to the sewage system in the Republic of Serbia.