Social Innovations in the Field of Wastewater Treatment in Rural Areas

Abstract

Abstract In order to meet social needs and create new social relations, the EU Commission classified under the concept of social innovations, development and implementation of new ideas (products, services, models). In rural areas, this kind of social needs is represented among others by the need of solving the issue of domestic wastewater treatment. The paper describes the imple-mentation of sewerage development program in Poland, as well as problems derived from large value variation of factors encoun-tered characterising the domestic sewage contamination. In view of the current state, the environmental risks due to improper use of domestic wastewater treatment technologies were specified.