A reed bed is a nature-based solution for treating water. It can be used in the final stage of the wastewater treatment process, ensuring water is ‘polished’ before being discharged into watercourses and the wider environment.
However, a reed bed system can often be neglected despite its essential role, leading to suboptimal performance and potentially harmful environmental consequences. But why does this happen?
We spoke to Ross Brown, Sales Manager at Oren Environmental, who explained why reed beds are often built and forgotten.
Many organisations have inherited reed beds on their estate. Yet, they sometimes lack the resources and technical knowledge to manage them effectively.
Understanding how they work and the impact they can have on their wider environment demands specialist expertise. This is necessary to deploy essential maintenance tasks, such as sampling the water within the reed bed to check its quality or cutting back the surrounding weeds and overhanging trees that threaten to choke the reed bed.
Regular reed bed maintenance incurs labour, equipment, and materials costs. However, budget constraints, particularly in smaller organisations, may result in maintenance getting postponed or cancelled altogether.
This results in the reeds turning to weeds, and the asset stops being a reed bed and becomes a shrubland.
Ross adds,
This short-term financial view can lead to significant cost outlay further down the line. If reed beds are neglected, they will, at some point, require full or partial refurbishment, which is much more expensive than ongoing maintenance costs.
“It’s also worth remembering that organisations can be fined if the condition of a reed bed causes pollution or breaches its environmental permit. This can also damage the company’s reputation and hurt them financially.”
Ross and the team have even known organisations to be unaware they have reed beds on their estate.
He says:
Their natural appearance means that reed beds don’t always satisfy people’s view of what a wastewater asset looks like. They’re wetlands, and to the untrained eye, you could walk past a reed bed and not know what it is or its essential role in treating water and providing a home for a diverse range of species.
“However, if your organisation’s operations involve activities that could pollute nearby water, and you have a reed bed onsite to help prevent this, you should know it exists and get help to take care of it.”
When taken care of properly, reed beds can filter sewage, agricultural runoff, and industrial effluents from wastewater in an environmentally friendly way.
But when they’re built and forgotten, the following can happen:
- Their ability to treat wastewater effectively diminishes
- The release of inadequately treated water can lead to pollution of nearby water courses
- Severe reed bed system failures occur that require costly repairs or complete refurbishments
The successful operation of reed beds for wastewater treatment depends on routine maintenance programmes. Sadly, limited knowledge and expertise coupled with financial constraints can result in reed beds being built and forgotten.
However, by bringing in specialist expertise to take care of your reed bed, owners and operators can preserve the effectiveness of their wastewater treatment processes while safeguarding environmental health and decreasing operational costs.
About Oren Environmental
Oren Environmental is an industry leader in reed bed maintenance and large-scale desludging.
Our expertise comes from refurbishing and maintaining one of the UK’s largest portfolios of reed beds and settlement lagoons.
For more information about Oren Environmental, please visit our website.
