Various economic instruments are being applied in wastewater management with the aim to pursue one or more of the above mentioned objectives:

pollution charges : In many countries charges are imposed for discharge of treated and untreated wastewater into the Environment. These charges are mostly levied upon discharge of effluents from treatment plants and industry.

Fees for wastewater services / user charges:Fees or user charges are directly charged to users of wastewater services upon connection to and discharge of wastewater into the sewerage system. For households, volume of discharged wastewater is directly related to the consumption of potable water. Consequently, the fee is usually collected as a surcharge on the water consumption bill. Different regulations could be considered if large amounts of potable water are used for other purposes like irrigating the garden.

As user charges and effluent charges are the most common economic instruments used in wastewater management, these will be further explained in the following chapters. Other economic instruments in wastewater management include:

indirect local taxes:Local governments may impose indirect taxes to generate revenue directly for the financing of wastewater systems. For example, authorities may recover sewerage investments through surcharges on property taxes. In general, these are levied only on properties with access to the sewer system, in which case the surcharge is actually a variant of the user charge. The limitation of this surcharge is that it depends on the performance of the property tax system, which is usually not (well) developed in low-income countries. In many countries, the money collected from wastewater discharge is not always earmarked for water infrastructure. It normally goes in to the national treasury, and then may be used for other services.

Discharge permits: Discharge permits may also be a tool for controlling pollution and raising revenue. In this approach, a responsible authority sets maximum limits on the total allowable emissions of a pollutant to a sewer or to the surface water. According to this limit discharge permits are issued. In the discharge permit, the charges or levies can be incorporated for cost recovery purposes. Tradable discharge permits can give polluters more flexibility in investment and operation of wastewater management systems.