Affiliation:
1. Department of Civil and Natural Resources Engineering, University of Canterbury, Christchurch 8041, New Zealand
2. School of Biochemical Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Valparaíso, Valparaíso 2340025, Chile
Abstract
The wastewater circular economy (WW-CE) represents a solution to improving sanitation coverage and management worldwide. However, the transition to circular wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) requires facilitation to enhance decision-makers’ understanding of the integral sustainability impacts of the WW-CE. This research implemented a Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA), combining Life Cycle Assessment, Social Life Cycle Assessment and Life Cycle Costing with a Multi-criteria Decision Making (MCDM) model to quantify the environmental, social, and economic impacts of different WWTPs technologies. Two real WWTPs (Plant A and Plant B) in Chile have embraced alternative WW-CE configurations, adopting the title Biofactories, and are considered as case studies in this investigation. A comparative LCSA considered the service of a 1,000,000-population equivalent, under three scenarios: wastewater discharge without treatment, conventional WWTPs, and biofactory WW-CE configurations. The results demonstrate that the transition to WW-CEs improved integral sustainability, and decreased integrated environmental, social, and economic impacts by 30% in Plant A, demonstrating better performance in terms environmental and social impacts. However, a 58% decrease in integral sustainability impacts for Plant B was achieved via the economic advantage of the thermal hydrolysis pre-treatment of sludge. The urgent need to adopt sustainable decision-making models to improve sanitation coverage and sustainability performance of the sanitation industry across the globe is discussed. The WW-CE in Chile presents an opportunity for this to be achieved.
Funder
ANID Chile Doctoral Scholarship
University of Canterbury Doctoral Research Scholarships
Subject
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law,Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment,Geography, Planning and Development,Building and Construction
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