Sewage and Waste Water Treatment
In sewage and waste water treatment, bund lining is the chemically resistant barrier that protects concrete from biogenic sulphuric acid, sulphides, reagent dosing and constant saturation across treatment plants and sewer assets.
Key Bund Lining Challenges in Sewage and Waste Water Treatment
Waste water and sewage treatment environments expose concrete to aggressive chemical and biological attack, including microbially induced corrosion, wet and dry cycling, and chemical dosing processes. These demanding conditions require carefully specified bund lining systems that provide long term protection and containment against deterioration. Examples of challenges that shape every wastewater specification include:
When Is This Required?
Sewage & Waste Water Treatment Common Applications
Bund and structure lining in sewage and waste water treatment runs across the full asset base, from sewer network through to final effluent. Common applications we line include:
Wet wells, pumping station chambers and CSO storage tanks
Inlet works, screening channels and grit removal lanes
Primary settlement tanks, scum boards and weir plates
Aeration tanks, distributors and clarifier perimeter walls
Anaerobic digester internals, gas-phase headspaces and digester roof undersides
Sludge holding tanks, picket fence thickeners and centrifuge areas
Sludge cake reception bays, lorry loading floors and bunded conveyor pits
Reagent and dosing chemical bunds for ferric, lime, polymer and sodium hydroxide
Combined heat and power (CHP) plant rooms and biogas blower bunds
Storm tanks and overflow chambers
Trade effluent reception bunds and tipping points
Final effluent and tertiary treatment channels
Odour control plant bunds and chemical scrubber bases
Sewer manhole benching and corbel sections under live BSA attack
Sewage & Waste Water Treatment Regulatory and Compliance Obligations
Wastewater operators sit under a regulatory framework dominated by environmental, public health and asset-stewardship duties. The principal obligations and references we design to are:
The Water Industry Act 1991 and The Urban Waste Water Treatment (England and Wales) Regulations
The foundation for treatment performance and infrastructure stewardship.
Environmental Permitting Regulations
Site-specific permits often dictate containment integrity, secondary containment volumes and inspection intervals.
The Industrial Emissions Directive
Applicable to larger treatment works, AD facilities and waste recovery operations.
Sewerage Sector Guidance (SSG) and Sewers for Adoption
Water company design standards for newly adopted infrastructure.
WIMES (Water Industry Mechanical and Electrical Specifications)
The technical specifications used by most UK water companies for asset construction and refurbishment.
BS EN 12255 series
Wastewater treatment plants design and construction.
BS EN 206 / BS 8500
Concrete in chemically aggressive environments, including the XA exposure classes that apply to most sewage assets.
HSE
Confined space and DSEAR guidance — central to any work on live treatment plant.
Industry-specific standards for sewage pipe lining and waste pipe lining
Including WRc Sewerage Rehabilitation Manual and ISO 11295, which sit alongside bund lining decisions on most rehabilitation programmes.
WRc and UKWIR
Research and guidance, which set the practical benchmarks operators reference in tender documents.
Sewage & Waste Water Treatment Recommended Lining Systems
Resin selection for wastewater is dominated by acid resistance, microbial environment and the practical realities of working on a live plant. Our typical palette is:
Epoxy Resins
Used on lower-risk areas of treatment works, including reagent storage bunds, plant rooms, transformer compounds and admin areas. Epoxies are not suitable for direct BSA exposure, and we specify them where chemistry is moderate.
Polyurethane Resins
Selected for outdoor structures with significant thermal movement, including storm tank tops, exposed channel covers and external trade effluent bunds, where flexibility and weather resistance matter.
Polyurea Resins
Rapid-cure systems that allow inlet works, wet wells and aeration tank inlets to be relined inside very short outage windows, with sprayed application reaching difficult geometries quickly. Particularly valuable on live treatment works where a tank can only be drained for a matter of days.
Vinyl Ester Resins
The chemistry of choice for biogenic sulphuric acid duty, including sewer headspaces, digester gas zones, manhole corbels and rising main soffits. Vinyl esters outperform standard epoxies wherever BSA, sulphides or concentrated reagent splash is the design case.
Novolac Epoxy Resin
Uprated chemistry for digester internals, hot ferric chloride dosing areas, methanol storage bunds and any zone where elevated temperature combines with aggressive reagent exposure.
Speak to a Specialist
Our technical team can advise on the right system for your project.
Sewage & Waste Water Treatment FAQs
Work to a permit-controlled confined space procedure with continuous gas monitoring (H₂S, CH₄, CO, O₂), pre-entry atmospheric testing, top-side rescue cover and trained surveyors familiar with BSA failure modes. Inspect on a defined cycle – typically annual at minimum – and log every entry, reading and finding so the asset’s compliance position is evidenced for the regulator.
Primary containment is the asset itself, including the channel, tank, digester, sewer or pipe carrying the flow. Secondary containment is the bund or external structure engineered to catch any leak from primary. Primary handles the process in normal operation; secondary only comes into play if primary fails, and is what protects the wider site, watercourse or aquifer from a containment loss.
This can often be done, yes. Rapid-cure polyurea systems can have a wet well, aeration inlet or reagent bund relined and back in service inside 24 to 48 hours, and most plants can stage work between asset duty/standby pairs. Where a full shutdown is unavoidable, the work is programmed around the shortest possible outage window agreed with the operator.
A visual inspection should be run at least annually, with more frequent walks (quarterly to monthly) on BSA-exposed assets such as digester tops, manhole corbels and rising main soffits where degradation accelerates between inspections. Hydrostatic testing intervals are set by the site’s environmental permit, and any reagent bund should be tested in line with COMAH or permit conditions.
A correctly specified and maintained lining typically delivers 15–25 years of compliant service across most treatment plant duties. BSA-exposed assets, such as sewer crowns, digester gas spaces, manhole corbels, tend to sit at the lower end of that range. Detail and joint sealants needing replacement every 7–10 years inside the period.
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