Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Technological Processes in the Wastewater Treatment Using Flocculants Synthesised from Polymer Waste

Abstract

The technological and environmental challenges promoted by the European Commission (EC) follow its objectives to minimise waste, ensure the rational use of resources and energy, use raw materials more efficiently, and increase recovery and recycling. The new hierarchy of handling products and waste has been a key challenge of the circular economy, enhancing the involvement of both businesses and consumers. The life cycle assessment (LCA) is an environmental management technique that makes it possible to assess the environmental impact of a product, a process, an industry, or even an entire sector of the economy. It is used worldwide with great success to study the various stages of technology, ensuring environmental safety. The experience of Polish and foreign research centres confirms the possibility of using the LCA technique to support the environmental risk assessment of technological innovations, therefore the LCA technique has been used to study the environmental impact of potential technologies for producing flocculants from polymer waste. LCA of newly synthesised flocculants has shown that sourcing flocculants from waste phenol–formaldehyde resins is highly beneficial to the environment due to the high toxicity of waste resins that produce phenol when exposed to physical factors.