Journal
WASTE MANAGEMENT
Volume 96, Issue -, Pages 168-174Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.wasman.2019.07.024
Keywords
Microbial quality standards; Sewage sludge; MPN method; Plate count methods
Categories
Funding
- Gobierno de Aragon (Spain) [T51_17R]
- Feder 2014-2020 Building Europe from Aragon
- project Research study for the improvement of the quality of effluents from urban wastewater treatment plants and landfills, located in the Community of Navarra (Spain)
- NILSA (Navarra de lnfraestructuras Locales, SA)
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Sewage sludge usually contains potentially polluting substances such as heavy metals, organic pollutants and various organisms including bacteria, protozoa, helminths, viruses and algae, some of which may be pathogenic. Certain of these pathogens could be transferred to the soil if the sludge is used on agricultural or land recovery applications. For its application on agricultural land, sewage sludge must comply with the limits established in the legislation, which in Europe does not include quality standards regarding microbiological parameters. Nevertheless, the presence of pathogens could limit its agricultural use, as it could pose a risk to human, animal and environmental health. This study compares 4 different methodologies used in microbiological analysis in order to identify the most efficient and reliable method on determining bacteria in sewage sludge. Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecium are used as bacterial indicators. The results obtained in this work indicate that results obtained with three different plate count methods cannot be comparable with those obtained with the MPN method. The membrane filtration method is recommended for its high precision and sensitivity, both in low and high bacterial loads. It is also concluded that it would be necessary to establish the quality standard in concordance with the method used. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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