General Wastewater Emission Ordinance

Sewage treatment plant of the Innsbrucker Kommunalbetriebe (Innsbruck municipal utility companies)
Photo: BML / Alexander Haiden

The General Wastewater Emission Ordinance defines for wastewater in general parameter-related threshold values, which have to be generally required by the authority as an emission limit within the framework of the authorisation of an introduction into a running water or a public sewerage system.

The existing system of emission provisions, which is oriented according to these principles, consists of the General Wastewater Emission Ordinance and branch-specific special provisions.

The Ordinance on the general limitation of wastewater emissions in running waters and public sewerage systems (General Wastewater Emission Ordinance - Allgemeine Abwasseremissionsverordnung -AAEV, Federal Law Gazette No 186/1996) regulates all general requirements in terms of water management as far as waste water treatment is concerned, in particular the general principles of waste water treatment, the limitation of wastewater emissions and their field of application as well as the monitoring of emission limits

Amendments to the Wastewater Emission Ordinance

Due to the merger of  the Wastewater Emission Ordinances “Wastewater Emission Ordinance Bleached Pulp” and “Wastewater Emission Ordinance Paper Cardboard” into the  Wastewater Emission Ordinance Cellulose and Paper  an amendment  of the General Wastewater Emission Ordinance has become necessary, which took place with the Omnibus Ordinance on the Wastewater Emission Ordinance Cellulose and Paper 2018, Federal Law Gazette II, No 63/2018.

The methodological requirements of this Ordinance were summarised together with the methodological requirements of numerous other Ordinances in the Methodological Ordinance Water, Federal Law Gazette II No 129/2019, as amended by Ordinance Federal Law Gazette II No 133/2019.

With the amendment to the General Wastewater Emission Ordinance and the Ordinance on Indirect Dischargers. Federal Law Gazette II No. 332/2019, the state of the art was updated in the field of gravity grease separators. For indirect dischargers of wastewaters from the accommodation sector, for which gravity waste separators constitute the state of the art, a facilitated monitoring is rendered possible in the Indirect Dischargers Ordinance.

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