Chapter 11
Sludge Hygienisation—A Novel
Technology for Urban Areas to Deal
with Incursion of COVID-19 Viral
Particles in Wastewater
Rudrodip Majumdar
Abstract The ongoing pandemic of viral infections due to the novel coronavirus
disease (COVID-19) is known to have affected about 8,240,000 people globally and
approximately 3,67,000 people in India as of June 19, 2020. The pandemic being
quite persistent in nature, timely planning for novel and adaptive interventions are
required for dealing with it, with a view to detecting the early signs of infection,
as well as, controlling the spread of the outbreak towards the uninfected population
residing at comparatively safer zones. In general, the coronaviruses belong to a group
of RNA viruses that are known to infect a wide range of hosts including humans,
other mammals and birds, with the clinical courses in the infected hosts ranging
from being asymptomatic to showing acute symptoms in the respiratory, digestive
and genital organs. Although the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) is reported to spread
primarily through inter-personal physical contacts rather than the faecal-oral route,
evidence of gastrointestinal symptoms caused by SARS-CoV-2 infections accompanied by the detection of viral RNA in the faeces of infected individuals, with high
probability of their presence in wastewater samples, makes an important case for the
thorough characterization and quantification of the pathogenic materials present in
the municipal sludge generated in urban centres. This becomes even more important
in the case of the metro cities and dense urban centres, where the chance of the medical
wastes from the COVID hospital facilities coming into the municipal sewage stream
is highly likely. However, the pathogens in the municipal sewage stream become
concentrated in the sludge, providing an opportunity to treat the separated sludge
from the wastewater stream using a technology of irradiation called ‘sludge hygienisation’ to curb the outbreak of the virus. The present work provides an assessment
of the sludge hygienisation technology for its suitability as an option to eradicate
the viral particles accumulated in the sludge samples from urban environments that
are presumably infected through the faecal deposition, as well as, due to uncurbed
release of untreated biomedical wastes. Such an intervention will provide suitable
means to control rapid viral outbreak that might be attributed to the high volumetric
flow rate of the municipal sewage. Investment in such novel interventions, given the
R. Majumdar (B)
National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru 560012, India
e-mail: rudrodip@nias.res.in
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
C. Chakraborty et al. (eds.), The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Green Societies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66490-9_11
263
Sludge Hygienisation—A Novel
Technology for Urban Areas to Deal
with Incursion of COVID-19 Viral
Particles in Wastewater
Rudrodip Majumdar
Abstract The ongoing pandemic of viral infections due to the novel coronavirus
disease (COVID-19) is known to have affected about 8,240,000 people globally and
approximately 3,67,000 people in India as of June 19, 2020. The pandemic being
quite persistent in nature, timely planning for novel and adaptive interventions are
required for dealing with it, with a view to detecting the early signs of infection,
as well as, controlling the spread of the outbreak towards the uninfected population
residing at comparatively safer zones. In general, the coronaviruses belong to a group
of RNA viruses that are known to infect a wide range of hosts including humans,
other mammals and birds, with the clinical courses in the infected hosts ranging
from being asymptomatic to showing acute symptoms in the respiratory, digestive
and genital organs. Although the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) is reported to spread
primarily through inter-personal physical contacts rather than the faecal-oral route,
evidence of gastrointestinal symptoms caused by SARS-CoV-2 infections accompanied by the detection of viral RNA in the faeces of infected individuals, with high
probability of their presence in wastewater samples, makes an important case for the
thorough characterization and quantification of the pathogenic materials present in
the municipal sludge generated in urban centres. This becomes even more important
in the case of the metro cities and dense urban centres, where the chance of the medical
wastes from the COVID hospital facilities coming into the municipal sewage stream
is highly likely. However, the pathogens in the municipal sewage stream become
concentrated in the sludge, providing an opportunity to treat the separated sludge
from the wastewater stream using a technology of irradiation called ‘sludge hygienisation’ to curb the outbreak of the virus. The present work provides an assessment
of the sludge hygienisation technology for its suitability as an option to eradicate
the viral particles accumulated in the sludge samples from urban environments that
are presumably infected through the faecal deposition, as well as, due to uncurbed
release of untreated biomedical wastes. Such an intervention will provide suitable
means to control rapid viral outbreak that might be attributed to the high volumetric
flow rate of the municipal sewage. Investment in such novel interventions, given the
R. Majumdar (B)
National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru 560012, India
e-mail: rudrodip@nias.res.in
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
C. Chakraborty et al. (eds.), The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Green Societies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66490-9_11
263