Industrial Wastewater Monitoring in the Public Health Institutions in Serbia

BRANISLAVA I. MATIĆ, Institute of Public Health of Serbia Original scientific paper „Dr Milan Jovanović Batut“ Belgrade UDC: 628.3 SNEŽANA M. ĐURANOVIĆ, Institute of Public Health of Serbia DOI: 10.5937/tehnika1804587M „Dr Milan Jovanović Batut“, Belgrade KATARINA R. SPASOVIĆ, Institute of Public Health of Serbia „Dr Milan Jovanović Batut“, Belgrade MILJAN V. RANČIĆ, Institute of Public Health of Serbia „Dr Milan Jovanović Batut“, Belgrade


INTRODUCTION
Industrial wastewaters are among most significant sources of environmental pollution, in general, with special harm done to the natural water bodies. Negative effect of the effluents to aquatic systems and human organism, originating from present hazardous substances; have been noted at both national and international levels. Some of the effects include death of live organisms in the aquatoria, algal bloom, destruction and devastation of natural habitats through their exposure to toxic sediment matter, disposed waste, together with other effects of long-term effect on the environment of toxicants. Chemicals' accumulation and magnification, together with their entering into food chain presents a potential public health risk [1] Irregular wastewater disposal has been a global problem for the environmental status, ever since. According to their origin and structure, the polluting substances of our concern are grouped in two fractions: biological and chemical [2]. Pollutants of key importance for the wastewater quality are nitrogen, phosphorus, heavy metals, detergents, pesticides and hydrocarbons [3].
Contents of wastewater vary significantly according to their origin, especially in the case of industrially contaminated ones. Thus, defining unique parameters for all kinds of wastewater is aggravated, due to this reason. Some key parameters are chosen as indicators of both chemical and biological pollution and processes undergoing in this environmental me-TEHNIKA -KVALITET IMS, STANDARDIZACIJA I METROLOGIJA 18 (2018) 4 dium: color, turbidity, biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), pH, dry matter, suspended matter, heavy metals, nutrientsnitrogen and phosphorus, toxic substances [4].
Law on Public Health regulates realization of public interests, together with generating conditions for the upgrading of the health status of general population, through comprehensive societal activities focused on preserving its physical and mental health, preservation of the living and occupational environment, prevention of the generation and harmful effects of the risk factors essential for the occurrence of disease, trauma. This Law also regulates means and procedures, together with the conditions needed for the organization and implementation of public health measures and processes [5]. Public health institutions in the Republic of Serbia are distributed according to the Decree on the Network of Healthcare Facilities [6], within the official network of 25 Institutes of Public Health (IPHs), topped by the Institute of Public Health of Serbia (IPHS) "Dr Milan Jovanović Batut", as a beacon of public health in the country. Spatial distribution of the IPHs Network is presented in Figure 1.

Figure 1 -Network of IPHs in Serbia
Activities undertaken within their territorial jurisdiction by the IPHs are in accordance with the Law on Health Protection, especially its section implying to social care for the health of the population (art.8), which ensures preservation and improvement of health through monitoring and suppression of risk factors, acquiring of knowledge and habits essential for health and wellbeing. Article 10 of the same Law, defines activities of IPHs in the field of protecting vulnerable population groups and general population from harmful effects of toxic substances originating in polluted water, air, soil and incorrectly dumped and deposited waste. Protection from both ionized and non-ionized radiation is also defined by this Law [7].
Key objective of this manuscript is to present the level of involvement of public health institutions in the process of industrial wastewater monitoring, focusing on the components of wastewaters mostly burdening their final recipient, with a potential to provoke a long-term public health threat.

METHODS AND DATA COLLECTION
Manuscript is based on the results of a crosssectional study, with a 3-year time frame (2015-2017). Wastewater samples tested in the IPHs' labs in Serbia originate from industrial facilities (processes). Physico-chemical and microbiological parameters were tested by using standard methods, in accordance with currently applicable regulations [8][9][10][11]. Industrial facilities generating wastewater that was tested in this study, belong to the following industrial branches: chemical, food production and processing, metal-processing, transport, services, wood-processing and textile production.
As a research tool a data-base designed by the National IPH was used. Such was regularly updated on an annual basis, collating data from those IPHs having sufficient technical capacities for performing lab test of wastewater samples, mostly from facilities atwithin the boundaries of their territorial jurisdiction. This data-base was formed in 2005. We used the data from the regular Annual Reports on the Industrial Wastewater Quality produced by the National IPH, for the given monitoring period (2015, 2016, 2017) [12][13][14]. As the aim of this manuscript is to give an insight into the industrial wastewater monitoring in the network of IPHs in Serbia, the following elements shall be presented: number of industrial facilities whose wastewater samples have been analyzed, number samples, number of non-compliant samples, wastewater treatment reperesentation among the mentioned facilities, according to the industrial branch.  Further on, we emphasize the importance of results for the year 2017. Among the given industries whose facilities participated with wastewater samples, only in the case of chemical and textile industries less than 50% of them (cca 40%) performed no pre-treatment of their effluents.

RESULTS
The least treated wastewaters in 2017 were those from the wood/furniture and food industry. We specifically focused our attention to facilities not having installed a wastewater treatment system, at all. Of the total number of facilities participating in wastewater sampling in 2017 (979), such were 200 industrial facilities (20.43%), which should not be ignored [14].

Figure 2 -Distribution of final wastewater disposal
Analysis of the distribution of wastewater final disposal into the recipient, for year 2017 is shown in Figure 2.
The chosen criterion was whether the industrial wastewater is disposed off into the centralized sewage system, natural watercourse (river flow, lake), or a combination of the both.
Actually, more than 50% of facilities involved in wastewater sampling in 2017, in chosen industrial branches, except services, use centralized sewage system as a final recipient [14].

THE MOST COMMON CAUSE OF THE WASTEWATER SAMPLES' NONCOMPLIANCE TO THE NATIONAL STANDARDS
In line with the adopted legal acts, parameters which have been analyzed are defined according to the industrial activity of the wastewaters' generators [9,10].  Table 4 shows range of the burden of present parameters on the quality of wastewater samples analyzed in IPHs labs, giving an insight into components of industrial wastewater with a potential environmental impact after its final disposal into sewage or surface water bodies, if released without pre-treatment [12][13][14].

DISCUSSION
From the preliminary analysis of the results, it is clear that periodical reports on the quality of industrial wastewater, generated by the Network of IPHs, point to numerous problems and bottle-necks in the process of data managing and analysis in the field of industrial wastewater quality monitoring. Primarily, number of wastewater samples analyzed in the IPHs labs is insuficient for any kind of an in-depth analysis, especially in the light of its constant decrease. This situation is sustaining as such, despite the fact that Law on Health Documentation and Records in the Field of Health (Article 26), clearly defines that: "Based on records from Pragraph 2. of this Article, licenced laboratories, competent institutions and other legal entities being involved in monitoring of environmental risk factors are obliged to submit reports to the competent IPH, depending on the territorial jurisdiction." Reporting on the quality of wastewater and surface water is defined in Point 8, of the same Paragraph 2, Article 26 [15].
It is, also, clear that industrial wastewater treatment is poorly implemented, as number of industrial facilities which do not treat their wastewater in all 3 years of continuous monitoring (2015-2017) was beyond 50%, which can be linked to the fact that parameters that burden samples at its most are: suspended and sediment matter, chemical oxygen demand, biological oxygen demand, ammonia, fats and oils, etc. The fact that most of the effluents are disposed of directly into natural watercourses indicates at the constantly present risk for both environment and health. Preventing the pollution of water supply sources and public health protection through preventing spread of waterborne diseases, are two key reasons for more significant implementation of comprehensive treatment of wastewater generating from various industrial sources [16,17].
Considering the fact that Serbian state is in the process of pre-accession to the EU, with inevitable opening of the Chapter 27, for the broad field of overall environment protection, it is of utmost importance to approach the problem of wastewater management through a series of concrete activities, among which regulating disposal of wastewater from healthcare facilities should also be included. Mentioning this "industrial" branch is not unimportant for the issue of this manuscript, as newly adopted regulation take this wastewater type into account as "municipal wastewater", which it surely is not, due to heavy presence of very diverse toxic substances and microbial agents in them [18].
Public health sector in Serbia, whith its institutional network, should be responsible for the environmental health impact assessment of the exposed population, not only from this kind of environmental pollution. As mentioned above, while interpreting IPHs role in preventing increase of environmental burden of disease, defined by the Law on Health Protection, namely this segment of environmental protection is an excellent example of a multisectoral approach to a public-health issue.