Occupational Health Risk Assessment for Wastewater Treatment and Reuse in Kanpur, India

Folake Monsurat Babalola, Lena Breitenmoser, Claire Furlong, Paul Campling and Christine Maria Hooijmans ()
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Folake Monsurat Babalola: IHE Delft, Institute for Water Education, Westvest 7, 2611 AX Delft, The Netherlands
Lena Breitenmoser: Institute for Ecopreneurship, School of Life Sciences, University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW), Hofackerstrasse 30, 4132 Muttenz, Switzerland
Claire Furlong: IHE Delft, Institute for Water Education, Westvest 7, 2611 AX Delft, The Netherlands
Paul Campling: VITO, Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek, Boeretang 200, 2400 Mol, Belgium
Christine Maria Hooijmans: IHE Delft, Institute for Water Education, Westvest 7, 2611 AX Delft, The Netherlands

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 12, 1-16

Abstract: The treatment and reuse of wastewater for irrigation can lead to occupational health risks for sewage treatment plant (STP) workers and farmers. Sanitation Safety Planning (SSP) is an approach which can be used to measure and mitigate these risks. This paper explores what impact a novel secondary treatment process, consisting of an integrated permeate channel (IPC) membrane combined with a constructed wetland plus, has on the occupational health risks compared with the existing activated sludge wastewater treatment process and reuse system in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh. A mixed methodology was used, which included key informant interviews, structured observations, and E. coli analysis. This data was used to undertake semi-quantitative risk assessments following the SSP approach. The novel secondary treatment increased the number of health risks which the STP workers were exposed to, but the severity of the risks was lower. This was due to the differences in treatment processes and infrastructures. The number of health risks for the farmers decreased both in number and severity. For their children, the severity of the health impacts decreased. These changes were due to the increase in the microbiological quality of the irrigation water. This study highlights the potential of using a semi-quantitative risk assessment to assess the occupational health impacts of using novel treatment technologies.

Keywords: agricultural reuse; constructed wetland plus; integrated permeate channel membrane; sanitation safety planning; semi-quantitative risk assessment; technological control measures (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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