China has made great achievements in pollution control, but the task remains arduous. Not long ago, Minister of Ecology and Environment Huang Runqiu answered reporters' questions at the "China's Decade" press conference of the Central Propaganda Department, saying: Although the improvement of our current ecological environment quality is significant, it is still at a medium to low level, and there is still a gap between us and the people's needs for a better ecological environment. We still have a lot of room for continuous struggle.

The areas that require continuous efforts include rural sewage treatment. According to official data, there are still over 500 million people living in rural areas in China, which account for more than 90% of the country's total land area. However, rural sewage remains a persistent problem in environmental protection. If the appearance of rural environment cannot be thoroughly improved, it cannot be said that environmental governance has achieved ultimate victory.

More than a decade ago, the issue of rural pollution began to receive attention, with some policies being introduced and market demand emerging. However, even now, there are still various controversies at the cognitive level regarding rural sewage treatment, which has increased the difficulty of solving the problem.

01 Cognitive Question 1: Does the rural sewage problem really exist

In the thousands of years of development history of the Chinese nation, agricultural civilization has occupied the vast majority of time. However, since the beginning of the modernization process, what has influenced and determined China's destiny is more based on the power of modern industrial civilization. In the eyes of many people, China's modernization process is inevitably accompanied by the disintegration, disappearance, and replacement of traditional agricultural civilization. Regardless of the correctness of this judgment, in fact, the rural areas today are no longer the same as they were five thousand years ago, which is also the root cause of the emergence of rural sewage from scratch.

The judgment of Wang Hongchen, a professor at the School of Environment and Director of the Low Carbon Water Environment Technology Research Center at Renmin University of China, is exactly like this.

For thousands of years, most rural areas have relied on digging wells to drink shallow groundwater. Although it is unhygienic, there are generally no major problems. Why? Because it is a dry toilet without black water, urine is directly returned to the field, and pollutants have no chance to mix into groundwater.

After the toilet revolution, the water volume has increased and cannot be returned to the fields. If it is not collected and treated, it will still seep into the ground and inevitably pollute the groundwater. Moreover, new pollutants such as interferents and resistance genes that were not present in the past have been added to rural sewage nowadays.

And compared to 5000 years ago, there is a significant difference in the dietary structure of rural China today. Previously, carbohydrates were the main source, with little oil or water. The water coming out of the toilet is really grey water, similar to clean water. Before, I didn't even have laundry detergent and used alkali to wash clothes. There is no bathroom, no shower, no soap and shower gel. In the past, rice could be washed in the village river because the water was so clean.

For five thousand years, there have been no black or odorous water bodies in rural China, and now chemical fertilizers are widely used instead of chemical fertilizers. At the same time, there were not as many poultry and livestock raised before, and there were no large-scale breeding farms.

In summary, rural areas in China are facing new problems that have not been seen in five thousand years. Rural areas have started to have large amounts of fish and meat, flush toilets, take showers, use a large amount of chemical fertilizers, develop animal husbandry, and the social ecology has reached a historical turning point. Pollutants are an objective reality.

The environmental department conducted a survey of a village in the south this year, which is a typical hilly terrain with a high density of settlements and no pollution control measures have been taken for daily life. Villagers rely on manual water wells to extract groundwater for drinking and daily use. Many households with the necessary conditions have installed water purifiers, expressing some concerns about the safety of drinking water. Although it looks clear and odorless.

Every household in this village has a septic tank, and domestic sewage flows directly into the village pond through an open ditch (without professional anti-seepage design and construction). The pressure well is also located in front of and behind the house, which is actually mixed with domestic pollution sources.

Therefore, toilet renovation must be implemented simultaneously with sewage treatment, especially in many rural areas where water improvement has not kept up and centralized water supply cannot be achieved, and sewage treatment must be synchronized. Only by solving this cognitive problem can the arrangement of funds and other aspects gradually catch up.

02 Cognitive problem 2: Chaotic warfare among various departments

Merely recognizing that rural areas have sewage that needs to be treated is not enough, and a unified top-level design is also needed.

There are at least four government departments with discourse power and initiative in rural sewage treatment issues: the Ministry of Agriculture has implemented biogas digesters, the Ministry of Environment has implemented wetland systems, the Ministry of Health has implemented septic tanks, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Rural Development has implemented centralized pipeline collection and treatment, and the water system also has a set of methods.

Professor Wang Kaijun from the School of Environment at Tsinghua University believes that government departments are confined and operate independently, with relevant experts having limited knowledge and lacking basic preparation, resulting in insufficient utilization of the infrastructure and basic organizational system accumulated by the country in rural areas.

During the construction of new rural areas, rural environmental governance should undoubtedly rely on the 40 million biogas digesters invested by the state for rural residents to build as an important infrastructure. Calculated based on a family of five, the 40 million biogas digesters already built at that time served over 200 million people. Is there any rural infrastructure with a larger quantity than this?

He said: The total population in rural areas is five to six billion, and without considering the infrastructure that covers over two hundred million people, we have not taken into account the national conditions. Biogas digesters in rural areas can not only handle leftover food and human and animal manure, but also treat some crop straw. After separate treatment of human and animal feces, the actual discharged sewage is equivalent to what we call greywater, with a small amount and easy treatment.

However, experts from urban and municipal departments are not familiar with what the Ministry of Agriculture is doing, and they are unwilling to learn about it. They always have to start anew, focusing on themselves, which has led to the abandonment of China's internationally renowned technology and facilities, such as biogas digesters. This has caused various departments to miss the golden opportunity to work together and leverage their strengths, which cannot be said to be a major regret.

In addition, there are some professional issues, such as designing rural areas without considering the actual situation of rural health facilities, which are calculated based on population, with water volume exceeding 100 liters per person. In fact, even if you don't go to rural areas for research, you will know the national situation of our country, which is that the young population has already gone to the cities to work. In rural areas, where left behind elderly and children are the main population, a household cannot use 100 liters of water per day.

This has resulted in a situation where, without understanding rural areas and considering national conditions, parameters are simply selected according to design specifications, drainage pipelines are designed, and then pipelines and sewage treatment plants are constructed. In some areas, a household has to invest more than 100000 yuan, causing a large number of "sky high" rural sewage treatment plants and resulting in huge waste.

The problem of rural domestic sewage treatment has not been solved yet, and some provinces and cities are still continuing the mistakes of the past. Professor Wang Kaijun believes that it is still necessary to propose: first, we need to understand the political system of our country. At the village level and unit, it is a political system of village autonomy, and comprehensive management should be carried out in terms of system and technology. Water, garbage, feces, village appearance, and even energy structure should be considered comprehensively.

However, the roles of the agricultural and environmental departments also have their own awkward situations. The agricultural department is promoting the direct return of manure to the field, while also opposing the reuse of treated wastewater, believing that it is unqualified to irrigate after treatment because agricultural irrigation requirements are very strict.

03 Cognitive problem three: Local standards do not consider governance purposes

In addition to the lack of uniformity in top-level design, there is also a lack of clarity in governance goals across regions, leading to issues with the application of technical standards and routes.

Professor Wang Hongchen believes that the basic goal of rural sewage treatment is first and foremost public health, which is the underlying logic of doing so. Because the toilet revolution is about solving the public health problems in rural areas, after the toilet is renovated, it is necessary to keep up with sewage treatment. Originally, there was no water to flush the toilet during dry toilets, so of course there was no sewage, and it was all used as fertilizer - but it had a foul smell and was inconvenient and unhygienic. After the toilet revolution, when flushing the toilet, sewage comes out.

In fact, urban sewage treatment initially solves public health problems. In cities, black water and grey water are mixed and sent to sewage treatment plants for formal treatment procedures and back-end disinfection, and there are basically no public health problems.

So, the problem of rural sewage is first and foremost a human settlement environment issue, which is a public health issue, with the core being black water (toilet water). In rural areas, dry toilets were predominant in the past, and rural domestic sewage was not mixed with black water. Public health problems were not prominent, at most it was black odor and the breeding of mosquitoes and flies. But now after the toilet revolution, if rural domestic sewage is mixed with black water, this problem has become prominent.

Improving the living environment mainly refers to improving the hygiene conditions of rural areas and farmers, that is, changing the smelly and dirty environment, which makes people live in unsafe and uncomfortable environments because human excrement has to leave their living circle.

To improve the hygiene conditions in rural areas, we need to first renovate the toilets and move them to the bedroom. After the toilet renovation, the mixed sewage will come out, and it is necessary to follow up with the corresponding sewage treatment, otherwise, the toilet renovation cannot achieve the corresponding results. Toilet renovation aims to solve hygiene problems. If sewage is not treated, it will become even more unsanitary.

If we acknowledge that rural sewage treatment is a hygiene issue, then it has nothing to do with many of the current discharge standards. Why do we still strive to achieve Class A, Grade 3, and Grade 4 water? This is all because the underlying logic has not been clarified.

For example, the peculiar phenomenon of nitrogen and phosphorus removal in rural sewage treatment. Facilities with a capacity of less than 100 tons have a large variation in water volume, and denitrification treatment is like a child's toy, which everyone knows is difficult. So why have such strict emission standards been set? Why is nitrogen and phosphorus removal required? For example, the rural sewage treatment standards around Baiyangdian are aimed at surface three types of water, which is quite outrageous.

So far, the basic functions supported by regulations for urban sewage treatment are: removal of organic pollutants, nitrogen and phosphorus removal, and disinfection. Should these functions be used for rural sewage treatment? The majority of provinces and cities require local standards. That's actually difficult to force others to do, and the industry cannot achieve it. Nowadays, many companies claim to be able to do it, because if they are truthful and say it's not possible, they won't be able to sell their products.

Professor Wang Hongchen said that in fact, based on scientific and rational perspectives, rural sewage treatment only needs to achieve two functions: first, to stabilize organic matter, that is, to achieve the removal of most of BOD and COD; The second is to complete digestion, which is to convert ammonia nitrogen into nitrate. The leaders of rural sewage treatment in Beijing have also instructed the extensive use of ecological treatment methods, but first of all, biological treatment must be used. Microorganisms are used to remove organic matter, convert ammonia nitrogen into nitrate, and then use ecological methods to improve water quality.

At present, local authorities are gradually updating their understanding of the standards for rural sewage treatment in accordance with governance objectives. 31 provinces across the country, as well as Kunming City, have established local standards for the discharge of water pollutants from rural domestic sewage treatment facilities, and multiple provinces have revised them in accordance with the new requirements. Hainan Province has released the new draft of the "Water Pollutant Discharge Standards for Rural Domestic Sewage Treatment Facilities (for Comments)", which has relaxed the main indicators compared to DB48/483-2019. Relatively speaking, the standards in North China, such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shanxi, and Hebei, are stricter, while those in Northwest China are relatively relaxed.

04 Provincial and Municipal Model

In recent years, some provinces and cities have continuously explored rural sewage treatment, and their achievements indicate that rural sewage treatment is not an unsolvable problem as long as the right methods are found.

For example, in Jiangxi Province, as of now, a total of 4824 administrative villages have completed environmental improvement, and about 7000 rural domestic sewage treatment facilities have been built, with a total designed treatment capacity of about 470000 tons per day. The phenomenon of rural domestic sewage cross flow has been effectively curbed, and the rural living environment continues to improve.

Around the creation of a beautiful China "Jiangxi Model", all 93 agricultural counties (cities, districts) in Jiangxi Province have formulated and issued special plans for rural domestic sewage treatment, with a coverage rate of 100%, forming a promotion route of "overall planning, hierarchical promotion, systematic governance, and effectiveness evaluation". In addition, Jiangxi adheres to the principle of "priority utilization and classified treatment", adopting a construction model and treatment process that combines pollution control with resource utilization, engineering measures with ecological measures, and centralized and decentralized measures. It promotes local selection of low-cost, low-energy, easy to maintain, and efficient sewage treatment technologies according to local conditions, ensuring the long-term and stable operation of treatment facilities.

The "Water Pollutant Discharge Standards for Rural Domestic Sewage Treatment Facilities" formulated and implemented in Jiangxi Province have been accompanied by four technical specifications and guidelines, filling the gap in the province and providing technical support and regulatory basis for achieving diversified governance models and scientific governance processes according to local conditions. Shu Feigeng, Deputy Director of the Jiangxi Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment, introduced that this work has been promoted nationwide as one of the typical experience practices in six provinces.

Facility construction is the prerequisite and foundation for sewage treatment. Currently, Jiangxi has exceeded the target set by the State Council's "Action Plan for Water Pollution Prevention and Control" of "by 2020, all county towns and key towns in the country will have sewage collection and treatment capacity". As of now, out of 724 established towns in the province, except for Chengguan Town, 599 have the ability to treat domestic sewage, with a facility coverage rate of 84%. Key towns and established towns along the Yangtze River and Poyang Lake have achieved full coverage of sewage treatment capacity, and 52 counties (cities, districts) have achieved full coverage of sewage treatment facilities in established towns. The cumulative sewage treatment capacity of the province has reached 450000 cubic meters per day, and 12000 kilometers of drainage pipelines and culverts have been built.

Outside of Jiangxi Province, Zhejiang Province has also been at the forefront of rural sewage treatment work in the country. With the "Thousand Village Demonstration and Ten Thousand Village Improvement" project as the main focus, it has carried out rural sewage treatment projects such as "sanitation to toilet", "purification of biogas digesters for one million farmers", "five improvements and one improvement", "comprehensive improvement of the central rural environment", and "three-year action plan for five water sources to jointly treat rural domestic sewage", accumulating rich experience in water treatment.

In the field of rural sewage treatment, Shanghai has also shown excellent performance. Since 2007, the city has launched governance work, which has gone through three stages: pilot promotion, comprehensive deployment, and rapid development, continuously expanding the scope of benefits of agricultural sewage treatment. According to statistics, as of the end of 2021, more than 4000 land treatment facilities have been jointly built in 9 agricultural areas and 103 townships in Shanghai, and more than 1290 administrative villages have been managed. The governance rate of administrative villages has reached 83%, ranking third in the country.

05 Industry Efforts

According to the article "Vitality: Wild Lilies in the Rural Sewage Market Have Spring" on E20 Water Network Solid Waste Network, the question of which environmental protection companies have entered the rural sewage treatment market is no longer a problem. In fact, as long as there is a suitable opportunity, no company will give up the rural market. Or in other words, as long as there are suitable opportunities to make money, for enterprises, the market does not differentiate between urban and rural areas. Whether it's a white cat or a black cat, catching mice is a good cat. Whether it's urban or rural areas, making money is a good market. It's just that the modes and methods will be different.

Just when there are no clear guidelines, and when multiple departments and elements such as energy, environment, ecology, and agricultural production cannot coordinate and form a joint force, the industry still lingers and is confused about issues related to dispersion and concentration, drainage and pipeline network, manual and natural treatment, and other development directions and models. They can only use their own technical abilities and resources to explore the market based on local conditions and without a definite direction, relying solely on their own courage.

Currently, well-known environmental protection companies active in the rural sewage field include Bishuiyuan, Shuangliang Shangda, Zhengqing Environmental Protection, Jindalai, CRRC Environment, CIMC Environmental Protection, Aerospace Kaitian, Huahang Environment, Hexu Environment, Pengkai Environment, Huaqi Environmental Protection, Taiyuan Environmental Protection, Zeheng Environmental Protection, Fujian Lanshen Environmental Protection, Water Art Group, Water Purification Yuan, etc.

Professor Zheng Jingzhan, Chairman of Shuangliang Shangda, once said at the E20 forum: "China's rural sewage treatment has been promoted for more than ten years. If you ask me about my profound feelings, it is' difficult '. He said that currently, the rural sewage treatment rate in China has steadily increased from 22% in 2016. For example, in Zhejiang Province, after more than ten years of treatment, it has basically reached full coverage of planned preserved villages. Years of governance have indeed achieved great results, and at the same time, it can be seen that China's rural sewage treatment field has its unique characteristics, which are 'high technical difficulty, immature industry, and high industry threshold'.

But after years of effort, the Zhejiang model of Shuangliang Shangda's integration into rural business has been successfully applied in the rural sewage treatment practice of Lin'an Guide Village. Through mechanism and technological innovation, rural sewage treatment is integrated with various industries of rural revitalization, exploring the establishment of a future rural model of "ecology, production, and life" three in one, truly realizing the closed-loop of "green mountains and clear waters are as valuable as mountains of gold and silver", and becoming a reference and inspiration for many regions across the country.

After years of continuous exploration and practice, Zhengqing Environmental Protection, also rooted in Zhejiang Province, has developed its own proprietary technology and management expertise in rural sewage treatment and long-term operation management. So far, Zhengqing Environmental Protection has accumulated valuable experience in providing long-term operation and maintenance services for rural ecological environment governance to more than 6000 villages, and has established a sound long-term operation mechanism for rural sewage.

In today's era where centralized sewage treatment dominates, decentralized sewage treatment technology, as a beneficial and necessary supplement, plays an important role in pollution control. Especially in rural sewage treatment, some environmental protection enterprises have begun to explore and try, and have made some achievements.

Hexu Environment has opened up a path in the equipment, intelligence, and productization model of rural sewage treatment. Li Wensheng, Chairman of Hexu Environment, introduced that over the years, Hexu has developed a series of products such as Beise, SUPER Beise, Thousand ton Beise, China Tank Horizontal Tank, CHtank China Tank, FREETANK, etc., which can meet the needs of on-site treatment of domestic sewage in urban areas without pipeline networks, source control and interception of urban black and odorous water bodies, centralized treatment of rural domestic sewage, small-scale centralized treatment of rural domestic sewage, joint household, and individual household treatment.

Pengkai Environment has launched a "satellite based sewage treatment" service model, combined with its independently developed Pengkai Circle low-carbon prefabricated sewage treatment system, to create a new urban water treatment model.

As early as 2017, before the release of the "Three Year Action Plan for Rural Living Environment Improvement", Lingzhi Environmental Protection had already begun to layout in the rural sewage market and cooperated with the 60 year old Japanese company Daiki to introduce decentralized sewage treatment and purification tank equipment in rural areas.

Liding Environmental Protection focuses on the design, research and development, manufacturing, sales, installation, operation, and testing of decentralized sewage treatment equipment. After years of development, it has not only enriched its existing product line, but also greatly improved its overall competitiveness. It has created numerous benchmark cases in the field of decentralized sewage treatment in rural areas, scenic spots, homestays, camping, service areas, and other areas. In May of this year, it launched a revolutionary product "Household Machine Cleaners" for the entire industry. Liding Environmental Protection Chairman He Haizhou pointed out that rural sewage treatment is a complex system engineering, from the collection of pipeline networks, to the design of standards, and to the later operation norms, all of which are indispensable. To achieve "reconstruction and heavy management", governance enterprises not only need to provide durable and stable equipment that meets standards, but also must have key technologies as comprehensive support for business.

Shuijingyuan focuses on a biological doubling sewage treatment system powered by an air source. Without mechanical power equipment for secondary and deep treatment underwater, it achieves three fold increase in microbial count, oxygenation efficiency, and tank capacity utilization per unit tank capacity. This technology serves numerous enterprises in various fields such as rural sewage treatment, industrial wastewater, and municipal sewage upgrading. Shuijingyuan believes that "advanced technology and operational management" are important directions for future water management. Technology is the driving force for industry development, and rural sewage treatment requires low-carbon, environmentally friendly, and investment and operation cost acceptable technologies to match it.

06 Conclusion

A few years have passed, and industry professionals who have devoted themselves to rural sewage treatment, facing various variables and doubting the authenticity of their struggle, will also ask the classic question from Forrest Gump: "I don't understand, do we have our own different destinies, or are we just drifting aimlessly in the wind

We should recognize that solving the problem of rural sewage is not a responsibility that the industry can fully undertake. Just like solving the problem of urban sewage treatment, "for the large-scale and wide-ranging treatment of rural domestic sewage, government guidance should be the main approach to improve government investment efficiency." In implementation, government organizations should take the lead, establish a market-based rural environmental infrastructure and socialized technical service system through industrialized equipment tools and market-oriented operation models.

The aspiration of the people for a better life is our goal of struggle. "The words of the leaders also echoed in the field of environment, encouraging the industry to participate in the immature rural sewage market, inspiring the perseverance of" never return until the Loulan is broken ", cultivating the tenacity of" persevering in the green mountains ", and inspiring the courage of" the brave win in narrow roads ". The struggle stories of these companies in the field of rural sewage are like colorful Paper Cuttings patterns, which are simply set off against the dim background of still confused cognition. They look forward to the breakthrough of government authorities and local cognition, truly solve the rural sewage problem, and build a good rural landscape.

Disclaimer: This article is reproduced from E20 Water Network Solid Waste Network, authored by Lv Yin Chen. The copyright of this article belongs to the original author and does not represent the views of this website. It is only for learning and communication purposes and is not for commercial use. If there are third-party intellectual property rights in the content, images, audio, videos, etc. in the article, please contact us promptly to delete them.