367

A publication of

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS

VOL. 97, 2022 The Italian Association
of Chemical Engineering
Online at www.cetjournal.it

Guest Editors: Jeng Shiun Lim, Nor Alafiza Yunus, Jiří Jaromír Klemeš
Copyright © 2022, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l.
DOI: 10.3303/CET2297062
ISBN 978-88-95608-96-9; ISSN 2283-9216

Decentralised Wastewater Management Systems in

Developing Countries: Key Barriers and Potential Resource
Recovery Applications
Regina G. Damalerioa, Arnel B. Beltrana, Aileen H. Orbecidoa, Kathleen B. Avisoa,
Renan M. T. Tanhuecob, Ador R. Torneoc, Rico C. Ancogd, Michael Angelo B.
Promentillaa,e,*
a
Center for Sustainable Engineering and Development Research, De La Salle University, 2401 Taft Avenue, Malate, Manila
1004 Philippines
b
Civil Engineering Department, De La Salle University, 2401 Taft Avenue, Malate, Manila 1004 Philippines
c
Political Science Department, De La Salle University, 2401 Taft Avenue, Malate, Manila 1004 Philippines
d
School of Environmental Science and Management, University of the Philippines Los Baños, College, Laguna 4031
Philippines
e
Engineering and Industrial Research, National Research Council of the Philippines, General Santos Ave., Bicutan, Taguig
City 1631 Philippines
[email protected]

Centralised wastewater systems are considered as conventional means for wastewater treatment, however, the
implementation of large-scale systems and expansion of sewerage networks in developing countries prove to
be challenging due to political, social, financial, technical, and environmental factors. Several studies identified
decentralised wastewater management (DWM) systems as a promising solution due to its benefits including
resource recovery for energy and agricultural applications. The successful implementation of DWM systems in
developing countries contributes to the main objective of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) No. 6 which is
to provide basic sanitation access to all. A low carbon society can also be promoted through energy recovery
from wastes and reducing energy requirement in the transport and handling of wastewater and sludge. The
paper provides an overview of the barriers and potential resource recovery and reuse applications to implement
decentralised wastewater management systems in developing countries. The initial review showed that there
are existing technologies already used for resource recovery such as anaerobic systems for biogas production,
nature-based systems for crop cultivation and water reuse, and mechanised systems like moving bed
bioreactors for wastewater treatment and reuse. However, developing countries are faced with several barriers
in the planning and implementation of sustainable wastewater management systems. The information from the
literature review is used as a guide to determine interventions for key barriers and to draft a policy guidance
manual on technology selection for decision-makers in the Philippines.

1. Introduction
Basic access to sanitation to all is one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) specifically SDG No. 6.
World Health Organization (WHO, 2019) reported that two billion people are still deprived of basic sanitation
services. Poor sanitation practices can result in the pollution of water resources leading to waterborne illnesses
to the affected communities. The WHO established a framework for the monitoring of access to drinking water,
sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services. However, this seems to be challenging due to limited studies and
data in low and middle-income countries (Odagiri et al. 2018).
Centralised wastewater management (CWM) is established as the conventional way of treating wastewater. It
is commonly implemented in urban and highly populated areas where the economy of scale is feasible (Sotelo
et al., 2019), and this is due to the decrease in the cost for sewer connection with increasing number of
connected households (Xu et al., 2019). For peri-urban and rural areas where households are scattered,

Paper Received: 31 May 2022; Revised: 20 June 2022; Accepted: 3 July 2022
Please cite this article as: Damalerio R.G., Beltran A.B., Orbecido A.H., Aviso K.B., Tanhueco R.M., Torneo A.R., Ancog R.C., Promentilla
M.A.B., 2022, Decentralised Wastewater Management Systems in Developing Countries: Key Barriers and Potential Resource Recovery
Applications, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 97, 367-372 DOI:10.3303/CET2297062
368

decentralised wastewater management (DWM) is recommended wherein wastewater is treated near the source
of generation. The scale of DWM differs among several studies. Reymonds et al. (2020) stated DWM can serve
10 – 1,000 households, while Singh et al. (2019) mentioned that DWM can treat up to 1,000 m3/d wastewater.
Advantages of DWM include, but not limited to, resiliency to shock loads, low energy requirement, simple
operation and maintenance requirements, and recovery of valuable resources for various reuse applications
(Singh et al., 2019).
The paper aims to provide an overview of the potential technologies, resource recovery pathways, and barriers
and drivers in the implementation of decentralised wastewater management systems in the developing
countries. The review could provide insights on developments on wastewater treatment and management and
determine interventions from the critical barriers observed in the Philippines and other developing countries.
Literature search was carried out using Scopus database for articles related to decentralised wastewater
management worldwide.

2. Systematic Review
A literature search was carried out last March 14, 2022 using Scopus database with the following keywords in
the title and abstract: “sanitation” AND “wastewater” AND “decentrali*” OR “centrali*”. The initial search
generated 351 published documents from 1988 until present. The inclusion of old literatures is to check the
changes on the advancements or trends on DWM. Initial screening checked for duplicates, and excluded articles
published in foreign language and categorised as “Erratum” and “Note” (n = 15). Further screening removed all
irrelevant and inaccessible articles based on abstract and titles (n = 3) and content (n = 40). Articles with topics
on pharmaceuticals, emerging contaminants, water treatment, disinfection, and remote control were considered
irrelevant. A total number of 246 articles are considered in the systematic review, including 26 relevant articles
from other search engines (Google Scholar and Google) and from references.

3. Sustainable wastewater management systems

Conventional wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) contribute to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions since high
amount of energy is required to treat large volumes of diluted water. With source separation and decentralised
wastewater treatment, the energy and nutrient recovery are fully maximised (Garrido-Baserba et al., 2018). The
potential amount of nutrients recovered from different wastewater constituents are presented in Table 1 below.
Furthermore, the demand for commercial fertilisers and energy-intensive technologies for treatment and
transport can be reduced (Garrido-Baserba et al., 2018).

Table 1: Composition of different wastewater constituents expressed in g/capita-d (Larsen and Maurer, 2011)
Composition Greywater Urine Faeces Combined
Organic matter 54 10 60 120
Nitrogen 1.4 11 1.5 14
Phosphorous 0.5 1 0.5 2.0
Potassium - 2.7 0.9 -

Figure 1: Sustainable wastewater management system

Some technologies for decentralised wastewater treatment with resource recovery mechanisms are discussed:
Anaerobic treatment technologies such as upflow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB), anaerobic baffled reactor
(ABR), and anaerobic digestion (AD), among others, have high removal of organic matter and have the capability
to produce biogas for energy or fuel source. In the study of Kulak et al. (2017), AD of feces (brown water) and
 369

food waste exhibited higher nutrient recovery and lower global warming potential. The AD in the study of Lansing
et al. (2016) produced a biogas of 0.108 m3/d, while the pilot-scale AD by Dinh and Le (2020) achieved a
maximum of 304.8 L biogas per kg of volatile solids (VS). The drawback with anaerobic treatment technologies
is the poor nutrient removal performance as observed in the studies of Yulistyorini et al. (2019) and Dinh and
Le (2020) in Table 2. Effluent of anaerobic treatment technologies should be treated prior to discharge.
Constructed wetlands are examples of nature-based technologies with multiple resource recovery pathways.
Treated wastewater can be reused for crop cultivation and non-potable applications (e.g. irrigation, cooling water
in heat exchanger, toilet flushing, etc.), while the biomass can be used as animal feed (Oliveira et al., 2021) or
feedstock for energy production (Masi et al., 2018). Other examples of nature-based technologies are
wastewater ponds for crop cultivation and fish farming (Jana et al., 2018), and photobioreactors (PBR) for
microalgae cultivation (Slompo et al., 2020). The technology performances of selected studies on nature-based
technologies are shown in Table 2.
Recent literatures have cited the following technologies with resource recovery capabilities: moving bed
bioreactors (MBBRs) where treated wastewater is used for plant watering (Ali et al., 2021), NEWgeneratorTM
system proposed by Shyu et al. (2021) where the captured nutrients are used as fertiliser, and struvite reactor
for the recovery of struvite fertilisers from septic tank liquor (Goel and Kansal, 2020).

Table 2: Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen (TN), total
phosphorous (TP), and total suspended solids (TSS) removal efficiencies of different technologies
Technology % Removal efficiencies References
BOD COD TN TP TSS
ABR 74 - - 21 66 Yulistyorini et al., 2019
AD - 50 - 51 38 12.5 - Dinh and Le (2020)
Constructed wetlands 81 - 95 65 – 99.1 38 – 99 39.1 – 97 79.3 - 98 Moreira and Dias (2020)
87.9 – 89.9 72.7 – 78.1 43 – 44.3 47 – 51.2 89.5 – 89.8 Pillai and Nair (2021)
Microalgae-PBR - - 66 74 - Slompo et al. (2020)
NEWgeneratorTM 94.5 82.1 43 97.6 Shyu et al. (2021)

4. Barriers and drivers in implementing wastewater management systems

Table 3 provides the barriers in developing countries and are categorised using the Political, Economic, Social,
and Technological (PEST) framework.

Table 3: Barriers in implementing DWM systems in the Philippines and other developing countries.
Barrier Political Economic Social Technological
Lack of government involvement X
Lack of coordination in policy dissemination and urban planning X
Lack of available funding to construct, operate, and maintain X
wastewater treatment facilities
Unwillingness of end-users to pay due to limited financial X
capacity or unawareness on improved sanitation services
Negative preconceived notions on wastewater treatment and X
reuse
Absence of community involvement during planning and X
maintenance of treatment facilities
Limited land available for construction X
Inadequate management of technologies X

The involvement of the government is significant to the success of a sanitation or wastewater treatment project.
The local government oversees the planning and provide resources during construction and maintenance.
Failed cases of sanitation systems resulted from the disinterest and unwillingness of the local government to
commit in the proposed sanitation projects (Davis et al., 2019). Reymonds et al. (2020) reported that lack of
support from the government agencies on small-scale wastewater treatment and reuse systems in India due to
absence of unified database. Lack of coordination among agencies is another political barrier as evidenced by
weak dissemination of policies and coordination in urban planning (Reymonds et al., 2020). These issues can
be addressed by creating a unified database for monitoring and creating a centralised agency for the
implementation and monitoring of sanitation systems (Reymonds et al., 2020).
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Wastewater treatment plants have high short-term capital costs with slow returns (Liu et al., 2021). Continuous
funding is required for the maintenance and operation of wastewater treatment systems (Sotelo et al. 2019).
Furthermore, there are reports on the consumers’ unwillingness to pay for the improved services due to limited
financial capability. The interview conducted by Brunner et al. (2018) showed that participants with low annual
household income only agreed to pay to invest on decentralised wastewater treatment \ when the cost-sharing
scheme was mentioned. The results from randomised controlled trials (RCT) in evaluating CLTS programme
recommended providing funding for the community to invest in toilets (Cameron et al. (2019).
Unawareness or negative preconceived notions on wastewater treatment and reuse can inhibit the development
of wastewater management. Oppositions to the construction of wastewater treatment plants are reported
because of potential odour and nuisance problems (Sotelo et al., 2019). In other countries, there are challenges
in the social acceptance of treated wastewater reuse (Brunner et al., 2018). Another social barrier is the lack of
community involvement during planning and/or maintenance due to the inability of the sanitation project to
address the community’s sanitation priorities or to induce behavioural change in the community (ex. use of
toilets) (Davis et al., 2019). Education and capacity-building are significant ways to increase awareness on
sanitation and acceptance on DWM systems. The implementation of education programmes such as the CLTS
show the importance of sanitation in rural communities by inducing disgust and shame (Sotelo et al., 2019). The
RCT in Indonesia showed that the CLTS programme evidently increased the awareness within the community
(Cameron et al., 2019). The five-year programme conducted by Indonesia government and UNICEF focused on
capacity building and strengthening of advocacy implementation. Improved sanitation is observed based on the
increasing use of toilets among the poorest households and decreasing number of villages practicing open
defecation (Odagiri et al., 2020).
Technological barriers include technology performance, maintenance, land area availability, among others. For
example, households in Southeast Asian developing countries rely on septic tanks that are poorly maintained
and rarely desludged (Sotelo et al., 2019). Furthermore, the septic tanks and other on-site technologies have
poor nutrient removal performance as discussed. Its overflows can contribute to the pollution of water bodies.
Another example is the large land requirement for the construction of constructed wetlands and other nature-
based technologies. Moreira and Dias (2020) recommended installing pre-treatment technologies to reduce the
land area requirement and clogging issues.

5. Wastewater management situation in the Philippines

The Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS) is a public-private partnership that provides water
and sanitary operations in Metro Manila, and the provinces of Rizal and Cavite. The Manila Water Company
Inc. (MWCI) and Maynilad Water Services Inc. (MWSI) are two water concessionaires that provide water and
wastewater services in the east and west zone of Metro Manila, respectively (MWSS, 2020) Despite the
continuous efforts to provide improved services, only 10% of the population in Metro Manila as of 2015 have
access to piped drainage channels while the rest had integrated drainage systems for effluent collection.
Furthermore, septic systems serve as primary treatment for communities lacking recourse to a sewage network
in both city and countryside regions. As of 2015, about 7 million Filipinos apparently used open defecation,
whereas 19 million continue to rely on inadequate sanitary services. Such negligence causes annual financial
damage of more than 78 billion pesos, 55 deaths per day, and ecological harm (WHO, 2017).
The barriers identified in the Philippines have similarities with the barriers in Table 3 such as lack of available
funding, unwillingness of consumers to pay, discharge of effluent to receiving water bodies due to lack of
wastewater infrastructures (ARCOWA, 2018). There are currently no national initiatives in place to conduct and
evaluate effluent sediment gathering and processing for water quality management. There is also an inadequacy
of thorough and inclusive governance at the local level, as well as effective public participation. Despite these
challenges, the LGUs and government agencies strive to improve sanitation access in the country. The following
references below provided some initiatives and/or programs related to wastewater management:
• Philippine Approach to Total Sanitation (PhATs), which aims to reduce the open defecation practices in
several rural communities (Robinson and Gnilo, 2016)
• Expansion of sewerage and septage management services in Metro Manila and Bulacan (Cabral, 2016).
• Amendments on the cost-sharing scheme of the National Sewerage and Septage Management Program
(NSSMP) (Cabral, 2015).
• Implementation of decentralised wastewater management (DWM) systems in Zamboanga City (Cabral,
2016) and San Fernando City (UN-ESCAP, UN-Habitat, and ATI, 2015)
• Rehabilitation of Boracay Island to improve wastewater treatment and disposal (ARCOWA, 2018)
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6. Conclusion
Sustainable wastewater management systems promote the recovery of high valued resources (energy, fertiliser
and water) by integrating resource recovery technologies in wastewater treatment plants. This can be achieved
with decentralised wastewater treatment systems where wastewater is treated near the source of generation.
The recovered resources are maximised and are readily available for various reuse applications. The common
resource recovery technologies in the developing countries are anaerobic treatment systems and nature-based
systems. Other mechanised systems have also been mentioned, but not often implemented. To implement an
effective decentralised wastewater management system, the political, social, economic, and technological
barriers must be addressed. Some of these barriers are evident in the Philippine setting. Nonetheless, the
developing countries are making efforts to address these challenges by providing education on sanitation,
exploring different financial mechanisms and partnerships, involving the community during the planning process,
among others. The NSSMP manual provided an initial toolkit for LGUs in the planning of their sewage treatment
facilities. The information gathered from the literature review could be used as to update and improve the
NSSMP manual or draft a policy guidance manual for decentralised wastewater management in the Philippines.
The literature review is complemented with policy review and stakeholder interviews to determine the critical
barriers and to provide interventions. Furthermore, the authors plan to create a toolkit or improve an existing
toolkit to be utilised by the decision makers for planning wastewater treatment projects.

Acknowledgements
The project titled “Decentralized Approach to Domestic Wastewater Management Systems in the Philippines: A
Systematic Review and Policy Recommendations” (Project No. Q-010) is supported by the Department of
Science and Technology – National Research Council of the Philippines (DOST-NRCP).

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