18 Organic Waste Recycling: Technology and Management
Institutional support and cooperation from various governmental agencies in the
promotion, training and maintenance/monitoring of waste recycling programs are
also essential for success.
Since the success of any program depends greatly on public acceptance, the
communities and people concerned should be made aware of the waste recycling
programs to be implemented, their processes, and advantages and drawbacks. A
public opinion survey was conducted in 10 communities in Southern California,
USA, (Stone 1976) to assess the social acceptability of water reuse. For lower
contact uses (such as in irrigating parks/golf courses, factory cooling, toilet
flushing, and scenic lakes), public attitudes are largely accepting; besides, treatment
costs are generally low due to the requirement for a lesser degree of treatment, and
adverse impacts on public health are minimized. In contrast, the reuse of
wastewater for body contact uses (such as in boating/fishing, beaches, bathing, and
laundry) produced more neutral or negative attitudes, while those for human
consumptive reuses (such as in food canning, cooking, and drinking) were not
acceptable to the people surveyed.
A recent report by Metcalf et al. (2006) indicated that in Florida U.S.A.,
irrigation with reclaimed water has become common and demand for the reclaimed
water is highest during the dry season. The advanced wastewater treatment plant of
Tampa, Florida, currently produces 190,000 - 227,000 m^3 /day of reclaimed water
and the flow rate is expected to increase to 265,000 m^3 /day within the next 20
years. The use of the reclaimed water for irrigation and stream augmentation is
expected to offset about 98,400 m^3 /day of potable water. Another 30,300 m^3 /day of
the reclaimed water will also be available for natural systems restoration and
aquifer recharge.
The assessment of public acceptance for wastewater reuse has not been
undertaken or is rarely, if at all, conducted in developing countries. Because several
countries such as China, India, and Indonesia have been recycling either human or
animal wastes for centuries, and due to their socio-economic constraints, the social
acceptability for wastewater reuses should be more positive than those in
developed countries. A recent study in southern Thailand by Schouw (2003) found
the recycling of human waste nutrients through composting toilets and irrigation of
septic effluents to be socially acceptable. The uses of composting toilet for excreta
treatment and waste stabilization ponds for the treatment of sullage (wastewater
from kitchens, bathrooms and washing) were considered to be the most
environmentally feasible.