SEWAGE TREATMENT FOR
IMPROVING THE QUALITY
MEDELLIN RIVER

Katherine Velilla García
Chemical Engineering student

University of Antioquia
June 4, 2011

SEWAGE TREATMENT FOR IMPROVING THE QUALITY
MEDELLIN RIVER
Medellin is a city that over the years has embarked on a path of development and growth that is reflected in culture, public spaces, infrastructure, innovations and investments in all cultural, political and economic. Along with this development experiment and experience the city population and industrial growth, causing increased pollution and waste caused by the different sectors, which were to stop especially when river. For this reason, we began implementing a series of projects aimed at recovery and remediatio …ver más…

Then, these sewers carry sewage to treatment plant in San Fernando. Typically, sewage treatment begins with the initial physical separation of large solids (garbage) of the current domestic and industrial wastewater using a system of grids (meshes), although these materials can be crushed by special equipment. The resulting water is discharged or re-introduced back to the Medellin River after being treated by
80%.
The work that has developed in Medellin with the sewage treatment is very remarkable, though; even in 2010 our city was named one of the best among 17 cities in the rate of green cities in Latin America in a study by the Economist
Intelligence Unit, ranking ahead of cities like Buenos Air es, Montevideo and
Santiago de Chile. In Medellin, a 99.7% of the population has access to sanitation facilities, and water treatment is 43% above average with other cities. Achievement is due largely to the Empresas Publicas de Medellin, who were in charge of these issues in the city for just over 40 years. Howeve r, Medellin is still not near 100% cover water treatment, indicating that at this time not all the water that is deposited in the Medellin river passes through the cleaning process, only 80% do. It is true that this is an important number, but not enough; because 20% of untreated water is transcribed in tons of waste that currently pollutes the Medellin River.

Central Sewage Treatment