Talk:Wastewater

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Body parts[edit]

  • I would remove physicology parts from the list --Melaen 23:22, 30 November 2005 (UTC)  :-)[reply]
  • The inclusion comes from practical experience especially of sewage streams below slaughter houses. In one example the floor of the inlet channel was covered in eyes from slaughterd cattle because of poor management control at the slaughterhouse. However, I would be content if it was deleted.

Velela 08:02, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sewage merge to Wastewater[edit]

  • I have added a suggestion that this [= the article sewage ] be merged with wastewater. Think there's enough overlap for these to be treated in one article. Cphi 20:42, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have added suggestion to merge the sewage entry into this one. In my experience sewage is defined as anything containing human waste, irrespective of other contents. There is therefore a huge degree of overlap with wastewater. The current sewage article is quite poor so it may simply be a matter of replacing it with a redirect. Cphi 20:36, 16 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • I did the merge. Anthony Appleyard 09:57, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Strong oppose I disagree wastewater may have sewage as a constituent but it does not mean that it is the same thing. I am working on differentiation of different waste types and associated waste management practices.--Alex 13:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

UASB merge to Wastewater[edit]

UASB = Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket technology

Re the UASB merge to Wastewater:

  • Strong oppose. In its previous form, yes that's a fair suggestion. But it deserves its own article. I have begun work on it. --Singkong2005 03:10, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • oppose. standing as an article in its own right, especially with a competent and willing author Singkong. Anlace 22:10, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Since UASB is still quite short, perhaps merge it to Sewage treatment? Anthony Appleyard 09:19, 11 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Sewage treatment does make more sense than Wastewater. However, it's a great article now (thanks notably to Alex a.k.a. Vortexrealm). I think we can consider the discussion closed, with no merge. --Chriswaterguy talk 09:40, 15 October 2007 (UTC) (formerly Singkong2005)[reply]

Urine contaminant[edit]

A bit surprised that urine is presented as a contaminant at the same level as feces. Urine is sterile. ?? Thanks for explanation Basicdesign (talk) 02:21, 6 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Lists - Remove related notices[edit]

The article containts two lists with a notice reading "This article is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this section to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (September 2007)"

Since then apparently nobody tried to convert the lists into prose for the good reason that the information would be lost.

I therefore suggest that the notices be removed and the content remain as lists. Is there anybody against this suggestion? Mregelsberger (talk) 16:25, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting contaminants?[edit]

Under the heading "Wastewater origin" one of the places waste water comes from is listed as:

Storm drains (almost anything, including cars, shopping trolleys, trees, cattle, etc.);

Cars... trees... cattle... in waste water? Doesn't sound right to me, but whatev's =] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.150.64.207 (talk) 04:54, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Flowrates from various sources[edit]

I am interested in learning about the flowrates of wastewater from various sources, such as per person, per city, per country, or worldwide. One source for that information may be: http://www.eolss.net/EolssSampleChapters/C06/E6-13-04-05/E6-13-04-05-T14.htm but it is difficult to evaluate what this applies to. Can a general treatment of wastewater flowrates be added to this article? Thanks --Lbeaumont (talk) 13:14, 15 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it would be useful but would counsel extreme caution in the choice of references which such data would depend on. The quoted reference is from the USA where usage per head is greatly in excess of anywhere else in the world including European countries, Australia, New Zealand etc. An approximation of the high level figure can be adduced from looking at the dry water flow sizing of sewage treatment plants and the capita served by such plants. Even here major allowances have to be made for industrial input, low quality sewerage allowing ground-water into the system, sea-water ingress in coastal towns etc. Using volumes of water supplied is also inconclusive because much water is used for industrial purposes, public space and golf course watering etc. I suspect that the answer being sought can be found in the masses of data published by organisations taking a world view but is likely to be girt with very many caveats.  Velella  Velella Talk   15:43, 15 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I suggest against including flowrates in this article for the reasons Velella described. The variation in sewage per capita seems insignificant in comparison to the variation in industrial wastewater, cooling water, stormwater runoff, and irrigation return flows. Flowrates could better be included, with description of the reasons for variation, in articles devoted to a particular type of wastewater.Thewellman (talk) 23:08, 1 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Referencing[edit]

In-line reference citations should be provided for each section, and preferably for each paragraph, to improve WikiProject Engineering quality classification.Thewellman (talk) 23:08, 1 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Info on biological pollutants (pathogens)[edit]

I've just added information about pathogens that can be in wastewater; however, I have now added the same textblock also to the article on sewage and am now undecided if I should shorten it here (I don't like seeing exactly the same content in two articles...). Perhaps I should shorten it by taking out the examples of the different viruses, bacteria etc.? EMsmile (talk) 16:09, 4 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Readability of Lead[edit]

The lead paragraphs started out at 25. I edited just now to clarifying points and reduce sentence length. It's now 37, not significantly better. I'll come back to this after getting some distance. As of now, however, it's hard to see more ways of raising that readability number. Some of the terms are multi-syllabic, which raises that Flesch number. Sanitation is 4. Wasterwater is 3. Conveyance does seem replaceable, but it's such a good word: I kept it. PlanetCare (talk) 19:38, 23 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for those edits, PlanetCare. Your work has inspired me to do some more. E.g. that sentence on stormwater was wrongly referenced with the Eawag Compendium. I am mindful that the lead should be a SUMMARY, that's why I added a sentence about pollutants and about reuse. A bit more could be done in that respect. However, I worry a bit that the lead now has too much emphasis on sewage and sanitation (including onsite sanitation) and not enough on other types of wastewater, e.g. industrial wastewater. - Then I also had a look at the article on sewage, and find the lead there much too long and detailed. We have to be really careful that the article on wastewater does not overlap/repeat too much with the article on sewage. Bit more work required on both articles... Which one is more important? Interestingly, both have about the same views per day, about 1000. EMsmile (talk) 00:36, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Good tip on looking for overlap. I do find that leads vary in how well they truly overview what's in the whole article. Some give too much detail, some not enough. I'll review again myself.PlanetCare (talk) 04:17, 8 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

More photos would help this article[edit]

Note to self: good to look for a shot of a water treatment facility, or of a storm drain releasing directly into a body of water.PlanetCare (talk) 04:38, 24 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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First paragraph of the lead[edit]

I feel that the first paragraph of the lead (as per recent changes) is no longer a good summary of the content of the article. In my opinion, the lead should not contain content that is not also in the article itself. With these new additions about collection, this has now happened though. Again, I see content being added that could equally be added at wastewater treatment which will lead to overlapping articles. Proposal: how about we rename this article to "Wastewater management" and refashion it to become the "parent article", and the one on wastewater treatment would become the sub-article? Could that be a suitable solution to the problem of two overlapping articles? This sentence with a reference to a publication from 1910 is also odd to me "Innovative populations diverted flow through their communities to serve as sewers". There is no URL given either, so nobody can check whether the content of that publication is cited correctly. Do we have nothing more recent than a publication from 1910 for this kind of statement? I actually think it's not particularly "innovative" to pollute the drinking water of the people downstream with your own sewage... If anything, that kind of content should be at sewage, not at wastewater which we want to make broader than sewage. EMsmile (talk) 01:26, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Liquid waste-management might be a better title than wastewater management to avoid ambiguity with the original meaning of wastewater. Several sources indicate the term wastewater was specifically focused on the water used to flush wastes away from the point of origin. The similarity of draft animal feces to human feces encouraged use of combined sewers. Early humans may have left feces and urine in scattered locations until population density encouraged use of pit latrines or buckets for collection of night soil. An alternative method was to have water remove those wastes as they were generated. Disposal of waste into adequate quantities of flowing water avoids offensive odors associated with material accumulating between removal intervals. I have observed first world communities using stream channels as solid waste disposal sites, and one can find people using bridge rails as a toilet in some parts of the world. Study of history suggests tea has long been used to conceal the taste of polluted water which required boiling because people understood the dangers of drinking from streams flowing through populated areas. As you suggest, the early history of water carriage of human feces and urine is presently included in the history section of the sewage treatment article. Perhaps moving that history to this article would clarify the difference between the original definition of wastewater and other liquid wastes.
Modern usage of the term wastewater may have expanded to include water used for purposes other than flushing wastes, but no longer needed for its most recent purpose, like irrigation return flows, cooling water, boiler blowdown, or draining a swimming pool. Expanding the definition yet again to include stormwater implies precipitation may become wastewater without human intervention by dissolving or suspending materials used or disturbed by human activity. Acid rain might be considered wastewater by that definition.
I suggest the original meaning of wastewater is essentially synonymous with sewage, and the expanded definition in the lead prior to my edit includes many liquids for which treatment may be unnecessary and/or economically infeasible. I don't disagree with the need for citations you requested, but as I mentioned in the above discussion ten years ago, that section was unsourced prior to my edit and the majority of this article remains unsourced. If we could agree that municipal wastewater is covered in the sewage article and industrial wastewater is covered in the industrial wastewater treatment article, perhaps this article and the wastewater treatment article should be recommended for deletion or turned into a disambiguation page rather than combined. Treatment of stormwater, cooling water, irrigation return flows, and well development water might be covered in those articles, preferably described with links to articles like settling pond, evaporation pond, infiltration basin and stormwater treatment area for treatment methods useful for more than one type of aqueous waste. Thewellman (talk) 05:31, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Suggested format and example entries for converting this article to a disambiguation page[edit]

Wastewater is any water used to transport waste, and is most commonly a synonym for:

  • Sewage, domestic wastewater, municipal wastewater - this is wastewater that is produced by a community of people


but the term is also used for:

  • Industrial wastewater, water-borne waste from power generation or manufacturing operations
  • Return flow, carrying suspended soil, pesticide residues, or dissolved minerals and nutrients from irrigated cropland
  • Acid mine drainage, from dewatering coal and metal mines
  • Produced water, a byproduct extracted with petroleum or natural gas
  • Urban runoff, cleaning activity and landscape irrigation in densely populated areas, including
  • Surface runoff, precipitation carrying dissolved or suspended materials potential damaging to aquatic habitats
  • Cooling water, released after use to condense steam or reduce machinery temperatures by conduction or evaporation

Thewellman (talk) 23:32, 21 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I think you're onto something here. It would solve quite a few of our problems of overlapping pages. Where would you put the content that is currently in wastewater? Move it to the respective articles (mainly to sewage and industrial wastewater)? I can see another development that might come at some point in future: we may want to rename "sewage" to "wastewater" (in my industry (WASH sector, SDG 6) I see the term "wastewater" more and more used in that way). In that case, the new disambiguation page should be named "Wastewater (disambiguation)", and sewage should be renamed wastewater. Is this something you also see on the horizon? EMsmile (talk) 06:12, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There really isn't much content to be moved after I eliminated the material without source citations, although editors with interest in finding sources can look over the record of changes. Given the lack of progress thru the last decade, I wouldn't anticipate much additional material. I would prefer to avoid substituting the ambiguous term wastewater as a title for the sewage article which will be found as the first choice by readers using links to resolve doubts as to definition. Thewellman (talk) 10:43, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
OK, but I am still a bit confused if the new page should be called "wastewater" or "wastewater (disambiguation)". I tried to understand from the guidance pages Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Is_there_a_primary_topic? when to use which but I got confused. With regards to "is there a primary topic?", I think the primary topic would be wastewater/sewage. You might have more experience than I do with setting up disambiguation topics. In that case I would just follow your lead. EMsmile (talk) 11:36, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Also pinging Moreau1 and Velella and PlanetCare - editors who have worked on this article in the past. EMsmile (talk) 11:39, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have salvaged some content that you took out of wastewater and moved some to sewage and some to industrial wastewater. For industrial wastewater, the content was not sourced but some of it I regard as common knowledge, or any textbook on industrial wastewater could be used as a source (I don't have one handy, otherwise I'd look it up). EMsmile (talk) 12:04, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I consider the (disambiguation) suffix more appropriate where Wikipedia's search function will alert users to ambiguity if the same word, like a common place name, has several different meanings with no contextual clues, and less useful when a generic term has articles on several significant variants. I have changed the suggested format slightly to illustrate how the primacy of one definition can be preserved without need for a second (disambiguation) article with the same name. Thewellman (talk) 20:00, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The bulleted list above is pretty good. A few refinements:
* For industrial wastewater, it should be "water-borne waste from power generation, manufacturing operations and mineral extraction." The latter includes a variety of mining wastes beyond mine drainage, and a variety of oil & gas wastestreams besides produced water. Another way to phrase it would be "water-borne waste from power generation, manufacturing operations and mineral extraction, including acid mine drainage and produced water"; and delete the separately-bulleted items.
* Urban runoff is a subset of surface runoff; perhaps combine those into one bullet.
* Cooling water, when discharged, causes thermal pollution. The latter term should be included in this bullet.
I will review the Industrial wastewater treatment article again after various moves and edits are completed. Moreau1 (talk) 20:05, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I like your wording change for industrial wastewater and the two resource extraction wastes can be easily included as indented bullets under that primary topic. I conceptually concur with urban runoff as a subset of surface runoff, and that can be similarly indented, while a single bullet would omit one of those two articles. Although stormwater runoff presently redirects to the surface runoff article, urban runoff does not. I similarly concur with addition of (unlinked) thermal pollution to the definition of cooling water, because disambiguation guidelines discourage internal links other than to the bulleted articles. Thewellman (talk) 20:50, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nice. I have made some small edits to the proposal (see edit summaries for explanations). I think now would be a good time to copy it across so that the article on "wastewater" looks proper again. EMsmile (talk) 23:37, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I've copied it to the actual page now. Do we still need those templates and categories at the bottom of the page, or delete those as it's now a disambiguation page? EMsmile (talk) 23:56, 22 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
At least you should try to fix the 1663 links to disambiguation pages caused by this change. The Banner talk 09:29, 23 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, this has to be done. Most of them will have to be changed to go to sewage. I vaguely remember that there is an automated tool for this, is that true? I think sadads used it when we split off greenhouse gas emissions from greenhouse gas. EMsmile (talk) 10:07, 23 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You can use Find Link for the basic link additions/fixes and then if there are more you probably want to do a batch process with Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser or the similar Javascript tool, -- depends a lot on how much its a matter of deep fix, versus just shifting the surface level stuff, Sadads (talk) 12:42, 23 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Fixing the links in the templates mentioned here would already be great help from my point of view (in total 581 links). The Banner talk 12:48, 23 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I've fixed the templates now (I think). - The "find link" tool is just to find where a word has been mentioned that should (possibly) be wikilinked, right? About Javascript tools, that's where my abilities usually hit a brick wall. ;-) EMsmile (talk) 13:23, 23 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The Banner: I am trying to fix those wikilinks but in some articles that show up under "what links to here" I can't find where the wikilink is supposed to be. Like in acid rain. I can find it neither in the main text nor in the template. Please help? Unless there is a delay of several days for the tool "what links to here"? EMsmile (talk) 06:33, 25 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Now that the article has been changed from a disambiguation page to a "list of similar articles" does that mean we no longer have to clean up the wikilinks? EMsmile (talk) 07:57, 28 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Too much detail in the disambiguation page now?[edit]

Thewellman I am just wondering if we are currently adding too much detail to the disambiguation page now if we now are listing types of industrial wastewater? Aren't we almost repeating what is in the wastewater template, i.e. here?:

Or is it a matter of the more the merrier? I am unsure what is expected of a disambiguation page. EMsmile (talk) 06:42, 25 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please forgive my delay in responding. I've been on the road for a few days. I don't think duplication is an issue since the template has been removed from this page. From my perspective, this list should contain every type of wastewater which has a separate article to establish its notability, similar to the list appearing in the article this page has replaced, although I would exclude formerly listed items having neither an article nor a source citation. Thewellman (talk) 01:38, 29 June 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I am not sure if it's the right approach to "list every type of wastewater which has a separate article". I mean that's what the template on wastewater is for, isn't it? Why duplicate that as a bullet point list? I would only list the main, higher level ones, such as "industrial wastewater" but not all of its sub-types.

EMsmile (talk) 00:37, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer's comments (July 2021)[edit]

I am currently working with several content experts on reviewing 150 Wikipedia articles related to 3 SDGs. This project is described further here. As part of this work, I received comments by Marcos Von Sperling for the articles on wastewater, wastewater treatment, sewage treatment. I received them by e-mail in a marked up Word document so I will copy them to here. I plan to incorporate them into the article and am happy to discuss them further here. EMsmile (talk) 02:20, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  1. : Regarding the first sentence "Wastewater is any water used to transport waste" - I am not sure whether we should associate it with transportation. For instance, are leachates or cooling water within this category?
  2. : We could also add the terms municipal wastewater, urban wastewater … We could also use ‘sewage’, and explain that, for on-site systems that receive only household wastewater, the term ‘sewage’ is frequently referred to by its main fractions, such as black water, grey water, yellow water etc – The EAWAG Compendium gives a good description and emphasises that they should not be seen purely as wastes, but also as products. In off-site collection systems at a community, sewage is frequently understood as domestic wastewater, as described by Metcalf.[1]
  3. : Regarding "additional flows": I liked that these other flows are included. I am not sure whether some of these are considered industrial wastewater (see their articles).
  4. : Glossary from Sanitation Compendium, EAWAG (2008): “Wastewater: traditionally described as any water that has been used and is unfit for further use”.

Metcalf & Eddy / AECOM (2014): “Wastewater is essentially the water supply of a community after it has been used in a variety of applications and which now contains constituents that render it unsuitable for most uses without treatment” Metcalf & Eddy use little the expression ‘sewage’, and employ more ‘domestic wastewater’. But I think ‘sewage’ is well known in many parts of the world, and we should keep it. Metcalf & Eddy: “Common sources of wastewater may include: · Domestic wastewater. Wastewater discharged from residences and from commercial, institutional and public facilities. Domestic wastewater is also known as sanitary wastewater ”. · Industrial wastewater. Wastewater in which industrial wastes predominate. · Infiltration/inflow. Water that enters the collection system through direct and indirect means. · Stormwater. Runoff resulting from rainfall and snowmelt. In my books, that cover mainly municipal wastewater, I also use these concepts from Metcalf. EMsmile (talk) 02:25, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest transportation is an essential part of the wastewater definition. Transportation of waste may be undesirably accidental in the case of leachate and stormwater runoff, but cooling water is intentionally used to transport waste heat away from a heat engine, similar to the way sanitary and industrial wastewaters are used to transport waste mass away from points of origin. Many environmental problems result from our inability to compartmentalize and isolate wastes at locations which might minimize the damage they cause. Thewellman (talk) 16:45, 26 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have re-arranged the page a bit. I think we need to stick to the textbook sources. Metcalf & Eddy talks about uses and applications, not about transport, as the main criterion to define wastewater. So I have changed that now. Secondly, I moved that sub-bullet point list to industrial wastewater and I feel that we should not include that here because after all, this is more of a disambiguation page which should point people to the right places to find out more. Otherwise we could make that sub-bullet point list longer and longer as there are so many different industries, generating so many different effluents. In any case, there is also the wastewater template at the bottom of the page where people can find more links. EMsmile (talk) 13:03, 24 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I have re-arranged the page a bit to clarify the different types of surface runoff, move the wastewater treatment article link among the industrial wastewaters, and list cooling water separately because of the volumes involved and because thermal pollution deserves separate recognition from other industrial wastewater pollutants. I have restored movement to the description of wastewater. I don't understand the reluctance to emphasize movement of wastewater. Water isn't wastewater until it moves from its place of origin. Until then, it may be stored for resource recovery or reclaimed for uses like evaporative cooling, dust control, irrigation, or wildlife habitat. I have also eliminated the confusing inclusion of other wastewaters with sewage, since that can be better explained in the sewage article. Thewellman (talk) 19:41, 28 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Metcalf & Eddy (2014). Wastewater engineering : treatment and resource recovery. George Tchobanoglous, H. David Stensel, Ryujiro Tsuchihashi, Franklin L. Burton, Mohammad Abu-Orf, Gregory Bowden (Fifth ed.). New York, NY. ISBN 978-0-07-340118-8. OCLC 858915999.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

Urban runoff explanation[edit]

@Thewellman I don't agree with the change you have made for urban runoff (effectively reverting a change that I had made earlier). You made it (again): * Urban runoff, which is water used for outdoor cleaning activity and landscape irrigation in densely populated areas created by urbanization. It is not from "outdoor cleaning" it is from rainfall! See here: Urban runoff. It says there Urban runoff is surface runoff of rainwater created by urbanization. Therefore, that's the explanation that we should use. Or have even no explanation and let people click through to the article, might be even better. EMsmile (talk) 01:35, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@EMsmile What would you call the dry weather runoff from landscape irrigation sprinklers which lands in streets and runs off into storm drains? What would you call the runoff from car washing, sidewalk washing, and pressure washing of buildings that runs off into storm drains during dry weather? Thewellman (talk) 01:46, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's probably just part of municipal wastewater. The urban runoff article clearly refers to precipitation and wet weather events. If you think that definition is wrong, then you should say so on the talk page of urban runoff and provide relevant, current, global references. From what I can see in the literature (the current literature at least), "urban runoff" is used to mean "urban storm runoff" and is always associated with rain events. See e.g. Eawag publication on page 175 "Surface Runoff: The portion of precipitation that does not infiltrate the ground and runs overland." (here). The amount of runoff generated from rain events is probably far more significant than the wastewater generated from washing cars or buildings which is probably why urban runoff is meant to refer to rain events. But further discussion on this should take place on the talk page of urban runoff. It wouldn't be good practice to have a different explanation of "urban runoff" on the wastewater article than in the "urban runoff" article. EMsmile (talk) 02:32, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Including aspects of transport in the definition for wastewater[edit]

I don't agree with this either usually leaching, flushing, or washing away wastes from locations those wastes were generated or placed.[1] If the only publication you can find as a source for this is from 1946 then doesn't that tell us something? If neither Metcalf and Eddy nor the book by Sperling nor the EAWAG compendium say anything about transport as a necessary part of the definition then I don't think we should pull in a source from nearly 80 years ago that does include that information about transport. You seem to emphasise old publications from the US over new & current ones with a global outlook, why is that? EMsmile (talk) 01:38, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Have the intervening years prevented wastewaters from flowing away from their places of origin? Thewellman (talk) 01:53, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's not the point. You think that transport is an essential aspect of the definition. If you think so, the onus is on you to find a suitable, fairly current reference for this. Definitions change over time. E.g. look at how "sustainability" was defined in the 1950s or "sustainable development" etc. If the current main literature on wastewater (Metcalf and Eddy, Sperling, EWAWAG) doesn't include the transport aspect as a central element in the definition then shouldn't that take precedence over your opinion which you are backing up with a publication from 1946? The current definition is that wastewater is "water after it has been used in a variety of applications" fullstop, no "and" needed there. Apart from that, it would be useful if you provided URLs with any citation that you cite. E.g. this one has no URL with it: Camp, Thomas R. (1946). "Design of Sewers to Facilitate Flow". Sewage Works Journal. 18: 3–16. It really feels to me that you tend to look for the oldest possible publications. Do you really not think that definitions and the way people view things can change over time? EMsmile (talk) 02:23, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thomas Ringgold Camp was a pioneer in the emerging field of sanitary engineering when our vocabulary offered little help differentiating water pumped from a well from water taken from the kitchen faucet or water flowing in a sewer or water in a river. Today's sanitation professionals might use adjectives to differentiate raw water from potable water, waste water, and receiving water; and their textbooks, from which definitions may be taken, are written for a level of assumed knowledge not necessarily appropriate for all readers of Wikipedia. Movement should be obvious from the bold text in terms like runoff and washing away; and like Camp, we shouldn't ignore the potential for improved understanding in the larger population.
I perceive an attempt to group a large number of articles in terms of water treatment. While there are certainly benefits to understanding those relationships, they should not exclude other aspects of these subjects. With the possible exception of connate fluids and recently arrived comets, all water had been used and reused many times long before Camp's era, and the fact that it may have been used in any combination of domestic, industrial, commercial or agricultural activities, surface runoff/ stormwater, and any sewer inflow or sewer infiltration does not mean it requires treatment (or another pass through the evaporation and precipitation cycle) to make it suitable for its next use. Thewellman (talk) 19:05, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Camp, Thomas R. (1946). "Design of Sewers to Facilitate Flow". Sewage Works Journal. 18: 3–16.

Proposing a new first sentence for the lead[edit]

I've changed the first sentence of the lead to this "Wastewater is water generated after the use of freshwater, raw water, drinking water or saline water in a variety of deliberate applications or processes." My reasoning: I think it helps to list the possible inputs (have included saline water because of production of brine from desalination). Have added applications and processes because runoff is not really a deliberate application but just happens. - I've also changed this article to a "list" type article (as shown on the talk page). As such, we can keep it really brief. It's just an overview to point people to all the other related articles that have more details. EMsmile (talk) 10:25, 5 May 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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