Since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, there have been news reports that trace amounts of the virus exist in some non-drinking water, but they are not present in our drinking water. At this time, the safety of medical wastewater discharge has received attention from relevant departments! Then, will the discharge of medical wastewater cause groundwater pollution?

There is a process for the treatment of medical wastewater in hospitals. It is necessary to combine the process control of the back-end collection and treatment system of medical wastewater, and strictly disinfect and discharge it. Due to the outbreak of the epidemic, relevant departments have become more strict in meeting the discharge standards of medical wastewater. The two key indicators for online monitoring of medical wastewater are Escherichia coli and total residual chlorine. After medical wastewater is treated, it will be discharged through the pipeline network to the urban sewage treatment plant, where it will be treated and disinfected before being discharged. If every hospital strictly follows the procedures, it will not cause pollution to groundwater, surface water and other water qualities.

But could it be that the sewage seeps into the groundwater before it is treated? If the groundwater level is high and the water resources are abundant, to avoid digging through the soil layer and preventing groundwater from escaping, it is better to adopt a modular and prefabricated structure when building a hospital. This way, there is no need to dig the foundation too deeply, and any contact between groundwater and surface water can be avoided. But some people may ask, so what if it’s like this? Won’t medical wastewater seep into groundwater through soil? This situation can be avoided by adopting a reverse osmosis structure that does not damage the site. A impermeable concrete foundation can be poured on the ground cushion layer, and then a hardened floor can be added. In this way, medical wastewater cannot seep into the groundwater.

In addition, in hospitals, I know that medical wastewater mainly comes from different departments such as wards, operating rooms, and laboratories. There are also feces and domestic sewage. Therefore, it is very important to purify the sewage and discharge it after meeting the standards! Especially for the bacteria such as fecal coliform bacteria, total bacterial count, combined bacteria and intestinal pathogenic bacteria in medical wastewater, they must be strictly treated and disinfected to meet the standards before being discharged into urban sewage treatment for secondary treatment to ensure water quality safety! The total number of colonies in medical wastewater can be monitored in real time by using the WECT-900 online monitoring instrument for total bacterial count produced by Hangzhou Modi. This is a single-parameter monitoring device, and different parameters require different water quality monitoring devices.