The present situation and trends of wastewater treatment in small settlements and rural areas of Lithuania

Abstract

This article presents the wastewater treatment in small settlements and rural areas of
Lithuania, including descriptions of capacity and loading of wastewater treatment plants
(WWTPs), types of treatment facilities, and development trends of biological treatment
facilities. In 2000 Lithuania had 597 WWTPs with capacity up to 1000 m3
/d, 95% of them are
the biological treatment plants. Today the most of these WWTPs are unloaded due to the
tendency to centralise wastewater treatment in rural areas of Lithuania that were in the eight
and ninth decades.
In small settlements and rural areas of Lithuania the aeration facilities are predominant. In the
eight and ninth decades practically only the activated sludge systems were built. The situation
began to change in the last decade of the last century: the biological filters and soil filtration
facilities with discharge into surface waters were applied more frequently, so the building of
aeration facilities started to decrease.