IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/inecol/v15y2011i1p49-63.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Life Cycle Assessment of Urban Wastewater Reclamation and Reuse Alternatives

Author

Listed:
  • Jorgelina C. Pasqualino
  • Montse Meneses
  • Francesc Castells

Abstract

Continuous population growth is causing increased water contamination. Uneven distribution of water resources and periodic droughts have forced governments to seek new water sources: reclaimed and desalinated water. Wastewater recovery is a tool for better management of the water resources that are diverted from the natural water cycle to the anthropic one. The main objective of this work is to assess the stages of operation of a Spanish Mediterranean wastewater treatment plant to identify the stages with the highest environmental impact, to establish the environmental loads associated with wastewater reuse, and to evaluate alternative final destinations for wastewater. Tertiary treatment does not represent a significant increment in the impact of the total treatment at the plant. The impact of reclaiming 1 cubic meter (m3) of wastewater represents 0.16 kilograms of carbon dioxide per cubic meter (kg CO2/m3), compared to 0.83 kg CO2/m3 associated with basic wastewater treatment (primary, secondary, and sludge treatment). From a comparison of the alternatives for wastewater final destination, we observe that replacing potable water means a freshwater savings of 1.1 m3, whereas replacing desalinated water means important energy savings, reflected in all of the indicators. To ensure the availability of potable water to all of the population—especially in areas where water is scarce—governments should promote reusing wastewater under safe conditions as much as possible.

Suggested Citation

  • Jorgelina C. Pasqualino & Montse Meneses & Francesc Castells, 2011. "Life Cycle Assessment of Urban Wastewater Reclamation and Reuse Alternatives," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 15(1), pages 49-63, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:inecol:v:15:y:2011:i:1:p:49-63
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1530-9290.2010.00293.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2010.00293.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1530-9290.2010.00293.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Karolina Szalkowska & Monika Zubrowska-Sudol, 2023. "Opportunities for Water Reuse Implementation in Metropolitan Areas in a Complex Approach with an LCA Analysis, Taking Warsaw, Poland as an Example," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-19, January.
    2. Lin, Wen-Shyong & Lee, Mengshan & Huang, Yu-Cheng & Den, Walter, 2015. "Identifying water recycling strategy using multivariate statistical analysis for high-tech industries in Taiwan," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 35-42.
    3. Philipp Kehrein & Mark van Loosdrecht & Patricia Osseweijer & John Posada & Jo Dewulf, 2020. "The SPPD-WRF Framework: A Novel and Holistic Methodology for Strategical Planning and Process Design of Water Resource Factories," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-31, May.
    4. Meneses-Jácome, Alexander & Diaz-Chavez, Rocío & Velásquez-Arredondo, Héctor I. & Cárdenas-Chávez, Diana L. & Parra, Roberto & Ruiz-Colorado, Angela A., 2016. "Sustainable Energy from agro-industrial wastewaters in Latin-America," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 1249-1262.
    5. Montse Meneses & Henry Concepción & Ramon Vilanova, 2016. "Joint Environmental and Economical Analysis of Wastewater Treatment Plants Control Strategies: A Benchmark Scenario Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-20, April.
    6. Nancy Diaz-Elsayed & Jiayi Hua & Nader Rezaei & Qiong Zhang, 2023. "A Decision Framework for Designing Sustainable Wastewater-Based Resource Recovery Schemes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-27, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:inecol:v:15:y:2011:i:1:p:49-63. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1088-1980 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.