Quantification of environmental impacts of domestic wastewater treatment using life cycle assessment: A review

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.04.053

Journal of Cleaner Production

Volume 190, 20 July 2018, Pages 221-233

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.04.053 Get rights and content

Highlights

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This manuscript reviews the LCA, and LCIA methodology of domestic wastewater treatment.
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This paper presents a wide-ranging review of papers published from 1990 to 2016.
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The LCA was used to determine the impact of wastewater treatment and the technologies used.
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The reviewed papers have some differences in term of the FUs, system boundaries.
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Sometimes these differences normally contribute to obtaining a few non-prosaic results.

Abstract

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is an analytical tool used to quantify the overall environmental impacts associated with products, processes or human activities from cradle to grave. The LCA is important to determine the impact of wastewater treatment and the technologies used on human health and the environment. It performs well to find the best solutions to improve the sustainability. Therefore, it is important to review how previous studies on wastewater treatment have applied LCA. This paper presents a wide-ranging review of papers published from 1990 to 2016 that have used a range of LCA to cover the objectives, boundaries, functional units (FUs) and life cycle impact assessment(LCIA) of wastewater treatment. The analysis of the reviewed papers revealed that there are some differences in term of the FUs, system boundaries, and LCIA methods. These differences normally contribute to obtaining a few non-prosaic results. Moreover, the FUs adopted in some reviewed studies were not able to achieve the purpose of providing a reference to ensure compatibility of the results. Therefore, it is highly recommended that more attention is paid to choosing the FU in future studies. Thus, to ensure the quality and comparability of LCAs, it is very important to develop the LCA guidelines and standards and the LCIA impact categories.

Introduction

The environmental pollution caused by the disposing of wastewater is an issue of concern in many nations around the world. Both developed and undeveloped countries are facing serious domestic wastewater pollution problems which affect water bodies, groundwater, and the environment. The technologies used.

To treat domestic wastewater consumes large amounts of energy (Ozgun et al., 2013). This has contributed tremendously to increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as well as the spread of many diseases. In addition, the increase in global warming, perhaps the most serious problem that humankind faces today, because of the high rate of energy consumption.

Approximately around half of the world's seas, rivers, and lakes have been contaminated by untreated domestic and industrial wastewaters. This has resulted in the contamination of natural resources as well as negative effects on aquaculture and agriculture (UNEP, 2010).

The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been used in the field of wastewater treatment from the 1990s to date, and many researchers have published studies on and around this topic in various local and international journals. However, different databases, boundary statuses, and methods have been used to assess the hazards of the products or technologies used in the treatment of wastewater from cradle to grave, and the results have been interpreted for the further use (Finnveden et al., 2009, Corominas et al., 2013).

Nowadays, a lot of concerns are being raised by the organizations, experts, governments, municipal employees, citizens and the industrial sector in regards to the environmental burden of many products. These worries relate to the effects of production processes, related services, transportation, waste treatment and the products themselves on humans and the environment. Almost every type of product that leaves a household, whether as solid waste or as domestic wastewater from, for instance, washing clothes, cooking or bathing, affects the stability of our environment.

The LCA is an extensive assessment that covers the effect on all types of natural environment and human health. It is an environmental tool that focuses on environmental impacts of a product's life cycle. Thus, it can help to provide a comprehensive assessment of the sustainability of products from three key perspectives: the social, environmental and economic (Finnveden et al., 2009). On the other hand, the inventory table of the collecting data including the input and output is very important to identifying the environmental emissions. However, main phases, the input and output data and the impact categories that can be considered in LCA are illustrated in Fig. 1. The definition of the goal and scope of an LCA is considered to be the most important aspect to determine before undertaking a study on the life cycle of any product, including domestic wastewater or the technology used in the treatment of that product. This is because quantifying the environmental impacts of wastewater using LCA of the study is conducted according to the statement which is determined in this phase,. Regarding the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) stage, it is based on the standard methodology found in ISO 14042. The last stage of the LCA framework is life cycle interpretation, which is based on ISO 14043. However, Akwo (2008) highlighted the main stages of the product life cycle assessment based on ISO 14041, 14042, and 14043 as illustrated in Fig. 2. The complete LCIA steps and the relations between the various ISO standards is shown in Fig. 3.

The purpose of conducting an the LCA is to identify and then prevent many of the problems related to the various parts of the life cycle of a particular technology or product. The LCA is being developed to meet the need of various industries and research in the environmental sciences. Recently, some aspects of domestic wastewater treatment have been improved due to the use of the LCA. It is being utilised to compare alternative products or services, then identifying the part of the LCA that needs to be improved (ISO, 2006). Therefore, this study is providing a review of the use of the LCA and the LCIA methodology in the domain of domestic wastewater treatment.

Section snippets

Current LCA studies on wastewater treatment

The treatment of domestic wastewater is a very important issue as it keeps our water bodies, groundwater and soil clean. Wastewater treatment technologies contribute to protecting the environment and human health. However, there are environmental costs associated with domestic wastewater treatment. The wastewater treatment technology currently being employed in the United Kingdom has been in use since 1913 (Corominas et al., 2013). Such technologies have had a negative effect on the environment

Evaluation of LCA assessment practices

An in-depth analysis was conducted on the above reviewed studies based on the ISO standards for the goal, scope, inventory, impact assessment and interpretation phases of the LCA. As regards the 20 reviewed papers, 100% of them define the goal, scope, FU, and system boundaries of every project. Around 20% of the studies use inventory data for the information supporting purpose only. Approximately 90% of the studies use the LCIA methodology to evaluate the environmental impact of wastewater

Conclusion

The LCA has been applied to the field of wastewater treatment since 1990. The purpose of employing the LCA is to study the environmental impact of wastewater and the technologies used in its treatment. Twenty papers have been published that use the LCA method to investigate wastewater treatment systems and technologies. An analysis of the reviewed papers showed that the papers use different definitions for the system, different FUs and system boundaries as well as LCIA methods.

Acclimated sludge

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of University of Technology Malaysia, Johor Bahru, and ministry of higher education and scientific research, Yemen represented by Sana'a university.

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ReviewQuantification of environmental impacts of domestic wastewater treatment using life cycle assessment: A review

Highlights

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Current LCA studies on wastewater treatment

Evaluation of LCA assessment practices

Conclusion

Acknowledgements

Water Res.

J. Clean. Prod.

Water Res.

Water Res.

Ecol. Eng.

Environ. Pollut.

J. Environ. Manag.

Water Res.

Water Res.

Waste Manag.

J. Clean. Prod.

J. Clean. Prod.

Sci. Total Environ.

Chemosphere

J. Environ. Manag.

J. Clean. Prod.

Water Res.

Separ. Purif. Technol.

Bioresour. Technol.

Biochem. Eng. J.

Water Res.

Bioresour. Technol.

A Life Cycle Assessment of Sewage Sludge Treatment Options

Review
Quantification of environmental impacts of domestic wastewater treatment using life cycle assessment: A review