Effectiveness of Some Selected Natural Filter Media for On-Site Small-Scale Treatment of Medium Strength Greywater

Greywater represents a potential resource of water that can be recycled to meet the standards for safe discharge or non-potable uses. this study evaluated the performance of sand, charcoal, and saw dust filters in reducing biochemical oxygen demand (bod_5), total dissolved solids (tds), ph, phosphatephosphorus (po4-p), and nitrate-nitrogen (no3-n) in greywater. greywater was fed into a simple filtration system (sfs) with sand, charcoal and saw dust filters each of height 16 cm in three plastic containers of the same size: internal diameter 19 cm and height 22 cm each and operated for two weeks. sand efficiently reduced the concentrations of bod_5, phosphate-phosphorus (po_4-p) and tds while charcoal and saw dust were less efficient. sand, charcoal, and saw dust reduced influent bod_5 by 97.65%, 61.20% and 66.12%; po_4-p by 99.92%, 83.98% and 20.56%; no_3-n by 28.30%, 58.80% and 39.21%; and tds by 47.18%, 7.94% and 29.69%, respectively for the two-week experimental period. overall, sand appeared to be the most suitable filter for improving greywater quality for discharge or non-potable uses in terms of organic matter reduction. effective performance of the charcoal and saw dust filters for the treatment of greywater need further investigation.