Seeding the drainage canal of a wastewater treatment system for the natural rubber industry with rubber for the enhanced removal of organic matter and nitrogen.

Current pretreatment methods for wastewater from natural rubber (NR) factories either have low rubber recovery efficiency or are costly to operate. A wastewater treatment system was developed that combines a pretreatment canal (PTC) seeded with rubber, an anaerobic baffled reactor (ABR), and a down-flow hanging sponge (DHS) reactor. The PTC is simple to implement and contributes to not only rubber recovery but also organic matter removal in the ABR and nitrogen removal in the DHS reactor.