Environmental assessment of urine, black and grey water separation for resource recovery in a new district compared to centralized wastewater resources recovery plant

Abstract

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Resource-oriented sanitation: Identifying appropriate technologies and environmental gains by coupling Santiago software and life cycle assessment in a Brazilian case study

“…For the sourceseparated brownwater treated at a decentralized alternative, the emissions were decreased in scenario DS1 but not in scenario DS2, which had high electricity consumption and consequently high overall emissions because of the Aurin treatment. According to Besson et al (2021), urine source separation has a low environmental footprint, with potential impacts on global warming decreased by 45% compared with centralized treatment. In the LCA performed by Spångberg et al (2014), a source separation scenario also performed well in terms of conserving energy and reducing GWP, but it increased the eutrophication and acidification impacts.…”

Nature-Based Units as Building Blocks for Resource Recovery Systems in Cities

“…This can also be a limiting factor in achieving circular nature-based systems, as the modern configuration of many urban areas still approaches water resources as one stream, when, in reality, several higher-purity (and -quality) streams exist, such as stormwater, greywater, blackwater, etc. [261,262]. For many of the NBS described, the input wastewater streams must have specific compositions; otherwise, the systems do not function appropriately.…”

“…For many of the NBS described, the input wastewater streams must have specific compositions; otherwise, the systems do not function appropriately. At the same time, units such as urine-separating toilets require a separate drainage system to be implemented in order to separate streams, which requires investments in infrastructure [262]. This approach of separating waste/resource streams at the source has been a recent one which has not been implemented in many cities.…”

Towards the development of source separation and valorization of human excreta? Emerging dynamics and prospects in France

“…Faced with these challenges, several studies have shown the potential of decentralized excreta source separation systems in Frontiers in Environmental Science frontiersin.org terms of environmental impacts and for agricultural valorization, compared to conventional sanitation systems (Vinnerås and Jönsson, 2001;Winker et al, 2009;Lam et al, 2015;Kjerstadius et al, 2017;Harder et al, 2019). Life-cycle analyses show a real environmental gain in the case of urine source separation systems where nitrogen is: 1) separated from wastewater and no longer treated biologically by nitrification/ denitrification; and 2) valorized in agriculture as fertilizer (Bisinella de Faria et al, 2015;Martin, 2020;Besson et al, 2021;Hilton et al, 2021). Greenhouse and field trials have also shown that the effectiveness of urine-based fertilizers is close to that of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers (Martin, 2020;Martin et al, 2020).…”