Odor Suppression Technology at Low-cost

Amid the Brazilian midwestern plains, is “Primavera do Leste”, a city located 237 km from Cuiaba, capital of Mato Grosso province. This is a city developed mainly in agriculture and commerce fields and is one of the cities that stand out in the growth of population (approximately 60,000 in just over 22 years after established as a city). Privileged by its location, as well as strength in commercial and business field have been contibutated to progress of the city.

Due to the fast growing of the city, the company Águas de Primavera began operating a sewage system. At the begining, the effluent treatment system was inefficient because it had a low rate of households coverage; only 1280 households had access to the sewage network. Today, the system has 63,059 meters of collector network and improved the operation system with the construction of new inlet and oulet for the effluent from the anaerobic pond. Finally, the collection network increased to more than 2845 homes.

The effluent treatment plant uses stabilization ponds, which are one of the most efficient when there are space and time available. Further, no skilled labor is needed to operate this system.
The system consists of:
– One separation unit waste and effluent;
– One sand decantation unit;
– One measurement unit;
– One anaerobic pond;
– One facultative pond;
– Three maturation ponds;

As the population increased and the city expanded, upper class residents who moved nearby the treatment plant, started complaining regarding bad odors generated by the plant.

Location: Mato Grosso province, Brazil

EM Application

Mr. Marcio Akira, knowing the effects of EM Technology recommended to the technical group of the plant to introduce EM Tecnnology to eliminate bad odors. Finally, after months of negotiation, EM•1® was applied in the plant.

Because the problem was serious, municipality and environmental agencies were making pressure to do somenthing to fight the odors. There was an official ceremony to launch the project in the plant with the participation of members of the local government, television and newspapers.

Effects & Results

With the application of EM•1 is possible to treat the sludge and the material floating in a very low cost. To treat the sludge they used EM Mudballs pumping into the ponds in a dosis of 1 ball/5m2 once at the begining and then one application every 6 months to eliminate the sediments.

Therefore, 8000 mudballs were applied into all ponds and to treat the floating material they used EM Bokashi (wheat bran fermented with Activated EM•1). The EM Bokashi was spreaded into the ponds on quaterly basis until the material was completely eliminated.

After 15 days of EM•1 application, the bad odors were completed erradicated in the effluent treatment plant. Complains from residents reduced notably and a survey resulted on 90% of the residents noted positive changes with no bad odors anymore.

Odor Suppression Technology at Low-cost