Wastewater Treatment Plant Testing Lab expands its scope

Based near Vilnius, the Wastewater Treatment Plant Testing Lab, the state-owned enterprise Construction Product Certfication Centre (VĮ SPSC), is expanding its activities and in the coming weeks plans to start offering testing of tertiary treatment units and treatment units for septic tank effluent.

“Currently we are in active preparation to receive certification for small wastewater treatment systems for up to 50 PT,“ says Arnas Danila, head of VĮ SPSC‘s Wastewater Treatment Plant Lab.

This year the lab, based in the town of Maišiagala near Vilnius, will start type testing treatment units according to new EN 12566-6 (Prefabricated treatment units for septic tank effluent) and EN 12566-7 (Prefabricated tertiary treatment units) standards. Today only three labs across Europe are certified and notified to carry out such testing, therefore it can be reasonably assumed that there will be a certain level of customer demand to test their products according to new standrads in Lithuania. Products that are only tested in notified labs can be granted CE marking and distributed in the EU market.

Treatment units for septic tank effluent (sealed-off pits for separating effluent with discharge openings) are causing environmental concerns in many European countries since such units are a considerable source of environmental pollution. Before modern small treatment units 15-20 years ago, septic tanks or effluent pits was a common practice for private homes that often could not be connected to municipal wastewater networks. “In this respect, Lithuania has fared relatively well since the local practice has favoured sealed-off effluent pits or pits that would in time naturally seal off. Meanwhile, the neighbouring countries and many other European countries have mostly gone after septic tanks,” Arnas Danila notes. “Such tanks are now a considerable cause for environmental concern.”

Already harmonised, the new EN 12566-6 standard should provide a solution for such environmental issues. The standard is the first of its kind that regulates treatment units for septic tank effluent on the pan-European level.