Page 52 - Materials Chemistry, Second Edition

Life Cycle Assessment of Municipal Wastewater and Sewage Sludge
Life Cycle Assessment of Wastewater Treatment
Treatment

3 Life Cycle Assessment of

Municipal Wastewater

and Sewage Sludge

Treatment

Maria Teresa Moreira, Andrea Arias, and
Gumersindo Feijoo

CONTENTS
3.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................33
3.2 Life Cycle Assessment Methodology in the Framework of Wastewater
Treatment ........................................................................................................34
3.2.1 Goal and Scope ...................................................................................34
3.2.2 Life Cycle Inventory Analysis ............................................................36
3.2.3 Life Cycle Impact Assessment ............................................................36
3.2.4 Interpretation of Results .....................................................................37
3.3 Evaluation of Conventional WWTPs: Methodological Assumptions and
Environmental Indicators ...............................................................................38
3.4 Focus on Sludge Management ........................................................................39
3.5 New Generation of WWTPS Under a Life Cycle Perspective .......................40
3.5.1 Quantifying Hidden Impacts: Emerging Pollutants and Direct
GHG Emissions ..................................................................................40
3.5.2 The Paradigm of Nutrient Removal or Nutrient Recovery from
Wastewaters ........................................................................................ 41
3.5.3 Toward Water Reuse: High Quality Effluents ....................................43
3.6 Integrating LCA in the Design and Simulation of New Facilities .................43
3.7 Conclusions .....................................................................................................44
Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................44
References ................................................................................................................44

3.1 INTRODUCTION
The increasing demand for clean water by citizens and environmental organizations
led the European Commission to consider water protection as one of its priorities
as outlined in the Water Framework Directive (WFD) adopted in 2000. Water con-
sumption is expected to increase by 16% in 2030, which is especially worrying in
the existing scenario of water scarcity that affects 11% of the European population

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