Microorganisms in the Air Over Wastewater Treamtment Plants

Abstract

We present the results of investigations of microorganisms present in aerosol emitted by selected devices of two mechanical-biological wastewater treatment plants (“Debogorze” and “Gdansk-Wschod”). In 2002, 5 series of measurements were conducted at each of the plants. The samples of air were collected by means of sedimentation method (PN-89/Z-04008/08) and by means of filtration method, using an air sampler produced by Merck. Apart from measurements of microbiological analyses, consisting of determinations of the total number of psychrophillic and mezophillic bacteria, manitol-positive and manitol-negative staphylococcus, hemolysing staphylococcus, Pseudomonas fluorescens, coliform bacteria and the number of spores of phycomycetes, weather conditions were also monitored. The most numerous microorganisms in the monitored air were psychrophillic bacteria and spores of phycomycetes. The number of psychrophillic bacteria varied in the wide range from 14 to 5255 CFU/m 3