The Royal Commission on River Pollution, established in 1865, and the formation of the Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal in 1898 led to the selection in 1908 of BOD as the definitive test for organic pollution of rivers. Five days was chosen as an appropriate test period because this is supposedly the longest time that river water takes to travel from source to estuary in the U.K. In its sixth report the Royal Commission recommended that  the standard set should be 15 parts by weight per million of water. However, in the Ninth report the commission had revised the recommended standard:  This was the cornerstone 20:30 (BOD:Suspended Solids) + full nitrification standard which was used as a yardstick in the U.K. up to the 1970s for sewage works effluent quality.
The United States includes BOD effluent limitations in its secondary treatment regulations. Secondary sewage treatment is generally expected to remove 85 percent of the BOD measured in sewage and produce effluent BOD concentrations with a 30-day average of less than 30 mg/L and a 7-day average of less than 45 mg/L.  The regulations also describe "treatment equivalent to secondary treatment" as removing 65 percent of the BOD and producing effluent BOD concentrations with a 30-day average less than 45 mg/L and a 7-day average less than 65 mg/L.