Journal ArticleDOI
Life Cycle Assessment of Urban Wastewater Reclamation and Reuse Alternatives
Reads0
Chats0
TLDR
In this article, the authors assess the stages of operation of a Spanish Mediterranean wastewater treatment plant to identify the stages with the highest environmental impact, to establish the environmental loads associated with wastewater reuse, and to evaluate alternative final destinations for wastewater.Abstract:
Summary
Continuous population growth is causing increased water contamination. Uneven distribution of water resources and periodic droughts have forced governments to seek new water sources: reclaimed and desalinated water. Wastewater recovery is a tool for better management of the water resources that are diverted from the natural water cycle to the anthropic one.
The main objective of this work is to assess the stages of operation of a Spanish Mediterranean wastewater treatment plant to identify the stages with the highest environmental impact, to establish the environmental loads associated with wastewater reuse, and to evaluate alternative final destinations for wastewater. Tertiary treatment does not represent a significant increment in the impact of the total treatment at the plant. The impact of reclaiming 1 cubic meter (m3) of wastewater represents 0.16 kilograms of carbon dioxide per cubic meter (kg CO2/m3), compared to 0.83 kg CO2/m3 associated with basic wastewater treatment (primary, secondary, and sludge treatment). From a comparison of the alternatives for wastewater final destination, we observe that replacing potable water means a freshwater savings of 1.1 m3, whereas replacing desalinated water means important energy savings, reflected in all of the indicators. To ensure the availability of potable water to all of the population—especially in areas where water is scarce—governments should promote reusing wastewater under safe conditions as much as possible.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Life cycle assessment applied to wastewater treatment: State of the art
Ll. Corominas,J. Foley,Jeremy S. Guest,Almudena Hospido,Henrik Fred Larsen,Serni Morera,Serni Morera,Andrew Shaw,Andrew Shaw +8 more
TL;DR: This work presents a comprehensive review of 45 papers dealing with WWT and LCA, showing that within the constraints of the ISO standards, there is variability in the definition of the functional unit and the system boundaries, the selection of the impact assessment methodology and the procedure followed for interpreting the results.
Journal ArticleDOI
Energy-nutrients-water nexus: integrated resource recovery in municipal wastewater treatment plants.
Weiwei Mo,Qiong Zhang +1 more
TL;DR: There is a need to evaluate the applications of the resource recovery methods in wastewater treatment plants from a life cycle perspective and the combined benefits and potential tradeoffs of these methods under different scales are evaluated.
Journal ArticleDOI
Eco-efficiency analysis of Spanish WWTPs using the LCA + DEA method.
Yago Lorenzo-Toja,Ian Vázquez-Rowe,Ian Vázquez-Rowe,Sergio Chenel,Desirée Marín-Navarro,Maria Teresa Moreira,Gumersindo Feijoo +6 more
TL;DR: In this case study, a group of 113 WWTPs located in regions across Spain were analysed using the methodology that combines life cycle assessment (LCA) and data envelopment analysis (DEA) in order to obtain environmental benchmarks for inefficient plants.
Journal ArticleDOI
Microalgae biomass production using wastewater: Treatment and costs
Luísa Gouveia,Sofia Graça,Catarina Sousa,Lucas Ambrosano,Belina Ribeiro,Élberis Pereira Botrel,Pedro Castro Neto,Ana Ferreira,Carla Silva +8 more
TL;DR: In this article, a vertical tubular photobioreactor (PBR) prototype was scaled up and integrated in a waste water treatment plant (WWTP), which achieved volumetric productivities of 0.1, 0.4, and 0.9% for Cv, Sc, and ConsC, respectively.
Journal ArticleDOI
Life cycle assessment of sewage sludge management: A review:
TL;DR: Large discrepancies were found in the selection of the environmental emissions to be included and how they were estimated in the analysis, and consolidation of the modelling approach in the following area are recommended: quantification of fugitive gas emissions and modelling of disposal practices.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
The Revision of ISO Standards 14040-3 - ISO 14040: Environmental management Life cycle assessment Principles and framework - ISO 14044: Environmental management Life cycle assessment Requirements and guidelines
Journal ArticleDOI
Assessing the environmental impacts of freshwater consumption in LCA
TL;DR: The presented method is useful for environmental decision-support in the production of water-intensive products as well as for environmentally responsible value-chain management.
Journal ArticleDOI
Assessing freshwater use impacts in LCA: Part I—inventory modelling and characterisation factors for the main impact pathways
Llorenç Milà i Canals,Llorenç Milà i Canals,Jonathan Chenoweth,Ashok Chapagain,Stuart Orr,Assumpció Antón,Roland Clift +6 more
TL;DR: In this article, the main quantifiable impact pathways linking freshwater use to the available supply are identified, leading to definition of the flows requiring quantification in the life cycle inventory (LCI).
Journal ArticleDOI
Life cycle assessment of wastewater systems : Influence of system boundaries and scale on calculated environmental loads
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compared the environmental loads from wastewater systems with different technical solutions and found that the separation systems outperformed the conventional systems by showing lower emissions to water and more efficient recycling of nutrients to agriculture, especially of nitrogen but also of phosphorus.
Environmental assessment report
TL;DR: The environmental assessment for the Tai Basin Urban Environment Project as discussed by the authors describes mitigation measures to reduce expected negative environmental impacts, discussed as follows: During the design phase, water discharge structures for the wastewater treatment plants will be designed to control the discharge of safe water flows, and the collection and treatment of odorous gases shall be considered.