An LCA of alternative wastewater sludge treatment scenarios

Suh, Young-Jin; Rousseaux, Patrick

doi:10.1016/s0921-3449(01)00120-3

Cited by 217 publications

(124 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Heat drying to 36 and 43% DS for undigested and digested sludge, respectively, were chosen for sludge used in cement manufacturing because they were the lowest integer values that resulted in net energy recovery at the cement plant. Data related to the costs and performance of individual technologies were taken from case studies (4,5,9,(14)(15)(16)(17) and from data provided by the East Bay Municipal Utilities District in Oakland, California, which utilizes anaerobic digestion, and the Central Contra Costa Sanitary District Wastewater Treatment Plant in Martinez, California, which employs incineration. The numbers used for direct fuel consumption during incineration are based on those reported by Mininni et al in their scenario with no heat drying (15), but the energy recovery is based on the LHV of Chengdu's raw sludge.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hybrid Life-Cycle Environmental and Cost Inventory of Sewage Sludge Treatment and End-Use Scenarios: A Case Study from China

Murray

Horvath

Nelson

2008

Environ. Sci. Technol.

201

104

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Sewage sludge management poses environmental, economic, and political challenges for wastewater treatment plants and municipalities around the globe. To facilitate more informed and sustainable decision making, this study used life-cycle inventory (LCI) to expand upon previous process-based LCIs of sewage sludge treatment technologies. Additionally, the study evaluated an array of productive end-use options for treated sewage sludge, such as fertilizer and as an input into construction materials, to determine how the sustainability of traditional manufacturing processes changes with sludge as a replacement for other raw inputs. The inclusion of the life-cycle of necessary inputs (such as lime) used in sludge treatment significantly impacts the sustainability profiles of different treatment and enduse schemes. Overall, anaerobic digestion is generally the optimal treatment technology whereas incineration, particularly if coal-fired, is the most environmentally and economically costly. With respect to sludge end use, offsets are greatest for the use of sludge as fertilizer, but all of the productive uses of sludge can improve the sustainability of conventional manufacturing practices. The results are intended to help inform and guide decisions about sludge handling for existing wastewater treatment plants and those that are still in the planning phase in cities around the world. Although additional factors must be considered when selecting a sludge treatment and end-use scheme, this study highlights how a systems approach to planning can contribute significantly to improving overall environmental sustainability.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hybrid Life-Cycle Environmental and Cost Inventory of Sewage Sludge Treatment and End-Use Scenarios: A Case Study from China

Murray

Horvath

Nelson

2008

Environ. Sci. Technol.

201

104

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“…Comparing possible methods of sewage sludge management, incineration as well as agricultural use has high heavy metal emission to the environment, but in different impact categories [30].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Use of LCA Method to Assess Environmental Impact of Sewage Sludge Incineration Plants

Wielgosiński

Cichowicz

Targaszewska

et al. 2017

Ecological Chemistry and Engineering S

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Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is one of the new, little more popular in Poland of elements of environmental management. In the world literature one can find many examples of the use of LCA but mainly for comparison purposes. The paper presents results of LCA analysis made on the basis of data from a running incineration of sewage sludge. Performing a thorough analysis of this process enables improved operational system, including through a better use of the resulting products of combustion, as well as determining the impact of the thermal treatment of sludge on the environment and compared the results with data from the literature. To date, in Poland has not been carried out environmental impact assessments and the process of thermal treatment of both sludge and waste, based on the assumptions of LCA.

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“…For the wastewater-related issues (WRIs), this method can be used to evaluate or critique the changes that are taking place (Bai et al 2017b;Corominas et al 2013;Gabarrell et al 2012;Hellweg and Canals 2014;Lassaux et al 2007;Zhao et al 2017). The related LCA studies include the improvement of the operation of municipal wastewater plant (Pasqualino et al 2009), the comparison of alternative wastewater sludge treatment systems (Suh and Rousseaux 2002), and the development of technologies for wastewater recycling (Choe et al 2015). When implementing LCA, an important purpose is to derive optimization strategies or recommendations to improve the environmental performance of WRI.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Set organic pollution as an impact category to achieve more comprehensive evaluation of life cycle assessment in wastewater-related issues

Zhao

Yang

2017

Environ Sci Pollut Res

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For wastewater-related issues (WRI), life cycle assessment (LCA) is often used to evaluate environmental impacts and derive optimization strategies. To promote the application of LCA for WRI, it is critical to incorporate local impact of water pollutants. Organic pollution, a main type of water pollution, has not been given much consideration in current LCA systems. This paper investigates the necessity of setting a regionalized impact category to reflect the local impact of organic pollution. A case study is conducted concerning an upgraded wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in China, which is assumed to meet different sewage control strategies. Chemical oxygen demand (COD) is selected to represent the organic pollution and treated as an individual impact category. CML 2002 is used to quantify the environmental impacts of different strategies. Results show that abnormal LCA results are generated with the traditional eutrophication impact category, and after the introduction of COD, more reasonable LCA results are obtained, making the entire comparison of different control strategies more meaningful and compelling. Moreover, BEES, Ecovalue 08, and Chinese factors are adopted here as different weighting methods. Different weighting results exhibited various trade-offs for the increasingly strict control strategies; the results of BEES and Ecovalue08 underlined the potential environmental burden, but the results of Chinese factors only emphasized the local environmental improvement. It is concluded that setting regionalized impact category for organic pollution can make LCA results more reasonable in wastewater treatment, especially in evaluating Chinese cases because of the serious water pollution caused by large quantities of COD emission.

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An LCA of alternative wastewater sludge treatment scenarios

Cited by 217 publications

References 5 publications

Hybrid Life-Cycle Environmental and Cost Inventory of Sewage Sludge Treatment and End-Use Scenarios: A Case Study from China

Hybrid Life-Cycle Environmental and Cost Inventory of Sewage Sludge Treatment and End-Use Scenarios: A Case Study from China

The Use of LCA Method to Assess Environmental Impact of Sewage Sludge Incineration Plants

Set organic pollution as an impact category to achieve more comprehensive evaluation of life cycle assessment in wastewater-related issues

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