Energy and Sustainability Assessment of Municipal Wastewater Treatment Under Circular Economy Paradigm

Abstract

Climate change and anthropogenic pollution have put limited water resources under pressure. Lack of basic sanitation services as well as the discharge of improperly treated effluent from wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) result in the deposition of large amounts of organic matter and nutrients, which have major detrimental effects on health. Wastewater treatment (WWT) can reduce water pollution but at the cost of increasing energy consumption and the corresponding atmosphere and climate problems. Sustainable WWT management is a global challenge to preserve fresh water and decrease energy consumption. Nowadays it becomes obvious that existing WWTP operation model, based on the linear "take-make-dispose" pattern, is no longer sustainable. Furthermore, disposal of a product in landfill means that all residual energy is lost. The adoption of circular economy (CE) practices with its 3R principles of reducing, reusing and recycling material appears as a timely, relevant and practical option to meet the goals of sustainable development. WWTP is a critical element in CE implementation policy and to measure the degree of "circularity" there is a need for indicators. This study considers the holistic overview of measuring the progress of CE implementation at WWTP under 3R principles using life cycle analysis (LCA) and material flow analysis (MFA) frameworks. The paper presents the principles of CE indicators set construction using managerial approach. The proposed set of indicators and integral circularity index are studied under three scenarios, based on real performance of northern and southern WWTP in Ekaterinburg, Russia. This study provides an efficient assessment tool of CE progress, which is rather simple for calculation and interpretation and suitable for the use of wide range of stakeholders.

Horizontal Flow Constructed Wetland for Greywater Treatment and Reuse: An Experimental Case

“…The EU adopted an ambitious Waste Circular Economy Package [24][25][26] in order to promote the reuse, recycling and recovery of raw materials to minimize the consumption of new resources [27,28]. WW can be considered a valuable resource that can help to overcome the water scarcity problem, especially in arid and semiarid climatic zones [29][30][31].…”

Energy and material assessment of municipal sewage sludge applications under circular economy

“…Contaminated wastewater resulting from the separation of liquid and solid phases (WR1 and WR2) is returned to the main WWT process. However, depending on the regulations, it can be used locally for water reclamation as a possible solution for the problem of water scarcity [2,33].…”

“…Modernization policy planning and implementation of municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in order to reduce negative environmental impact is a key element for a sustainable management in concordance with circular economy (CE) view [1][2][3]. Evolution of rapid techniques together with the development of fundamentally new sludge-processing stages thereby lead to energy consumption growth [4][5][6].…”

Evaluating Global Municipal Solid Waste Management Efficiency From a Circular Economy Point of View

“…The Russian Industrial development strategy for the processing, treatment and disposal of industrial waste and MSW for the period up to 2030 has defined one of the main CE resource-oriented indicator -the level of substitution (in percentage) of non-renewable natural resources for recycled ones for application in national economics, thus characterizing the scope of 3R (reduce-reuse-recycle) principle in the country [45]. Specific indicators, measuring the share (or rate) of achieved success towards CE, are considered to be the most valuable and all-purpose instrument for the CE ideology transition as it was mentioned by Kiselev et al [46] for sewage sludge, but relevant for MSW.…”