For manufacturers of small wastewater treatment plants, the requirements for the approval of their products in France could soon change. At present, the following decree has been submitted to the relevant authorities in Brussels for approval:
“ORDER of […] amending the Order of 7 September 2009 laying down the technical specifications applicable to individual sewerage systems receiving a gross load of organic waste less than or equal to 1.2 kg/day of BOD5 and the Order of 27 April 2012 on the implementing procedures for the inspection of individual sewerage installations”
[https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-databases/tris/fr/search/?trisaction=search.detail&year=2020&num=123]
This decree essentially relates to systems and plants that cannot be CE marked. According to Article 8, the following conditions apply to systems:
To perform the treatment, the system shall include
- a primary treatment device, built in situ or prefabricated;
- a secondary treatment device using the purifying power of the soil.
This applies only to systems complying with EN 12566-2 (soil infiltration systems) or EN 12566-5 (filtration systems for pre-treated domestic wastewater). The decree regulates, among other things, requirements for the test programme (44 weeks in total), wastewater pre-treatment and inlet and outlet concentrations.
The simplified assessment procedure described in Appendix 3 of the decree applies to all treatment systems according to hEN 12566 Part 3 or Part 6. The basis for the assessment is the 38-week test programme corresponding to the initial type testing of the standard. The simplified assessment regulates among other things
- A standard test performed without desludging shall be demonstrated.
- There is a new evaluation procedure for the effluent concentrations for the parameters BOD5 and SS for which the value Lsup must be calculated (Lsup = m 1.34 x s; m = mean value; s = standard deviation - for details see appendix 3 of the decree)
- The evaluation of inlet quality which previously only included BOD5 must now also include the additional parameters COD and SS.