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The reed beds technique has been developed in Europe, mostly in the Northern States (United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Austria and Sweden) starting from the middle 80s and it's still in its expanding phase, target for several studies turned to the improvement of the existing techniques.

In the beginning in Italy, as in other Mediterranean countries, constructed wetlands have not been considered, and it's been tested starting from the early 90s. Due to the success obtained during the first testing years in Italy, several companies, already working in the water-related field, decided to begin dealing with this technique, even if some of them didn't have enough technical and practical knoledges.

Anyway constructed wetlands have been studied by several univercities also with investments on part of private companies, and they are presently considered as an excellent alternative to the traditional activated sludge plants and to the subirrigation in the service of small and medium communities. This is confirmed by the appearence of the constructed wetlands technique in national laws as the suggested technique to treat small and medium communities wastewater (up to 2000 persons).

Initram S.r.l. designed and executed more than 700 reed beds of different dimensions and types (houses, hotels, campings, small towns, vineyards, both as complete treatment and as refinement plants) using the most tested techniques in Europe.