Life cycle assessment (LCA) of small wastewater treatment plants

Transcription

1 Faculty of Business and Economics, Chair of Business Administration, esp. Environmental Management and Accounting Life cycle assessment (LCA) of small wastewater treatment plants Rebecca Schubert, Martin Nowack, Prof. Dr. Edeltraud Guenther Budapest, 1st March 2011

2 1. Introduction 2. Materials & Methods 3. Results & Discussion 4. Conclusion & Outlook slide 2 of 13

3 Future settlement structures and urban drainage are challenged by a multitude of future challenges: Climate change Demographic change Decreasing water demand Widely discussed adaption option for rural and non-connected households is the installation of Small Wastewater Treatment Plants (SWWTP): Shorter life time (increasing the flexibility to deal with uncertainty) Lower investment costs (under certain circumstances) No data on the ecological performance of SWWTP is available: Conduction of a survey among the producers of SWWTP to develop a life cycle inventory slide 3 of 13

4 1. Introduction 2. Materials & Methods 3. Results & Discussion 4. Conclusion & Outlook slide 4 of 13

5 Sequencing batch reactor Sewage production Sewage transport Batch Ventilation Water disposal Energy consumption Sewage sludge Clear-water pull-off Sedimentation Sequencing batch reactor (Picture: Martin Nowack) Schematic illustration of a sequencing batch reactor slide 5 of 13

6 Transport of the plants Transport Number of plants per vehicle Data Distance in km Distance per transported plant in km worst case best case mean case ,5 48,48 slide 6 of 13

7 1. Introduction 2. Materials & Methods 3. Results & Discussion 4. Conclusion & Outlook slide 7 of 13

8 Impact assessment for concrete and PE-container: normalized Abiotic depletion Acidification Eutrophication Global warming (GWP100) Ozone layer depletion Human toxicity Fresh water aquatic ecotox Marine aquatic ecotoxicity Terrestrial ecotoxicity Photochemical oxidation WWTP concrete (best case) WWTP PE (mean case) WWTP concrete (mean case) WWTP PE (worst case) WWTP concrete (worst case) WWTP PE (best case) slide 8 of 13

9 Impact assessment for a concrete container: characterization Abiotic depletion Acidification Eutrophication Global warming (GWP100) Ozone layer depletion Human toxicity Fresh water aquatic ecotox Marine aquatic ecotoxicity Terrestrial ecotoxicity Photochemical oxidation production- conr. (mean case) use concr. (mean case) disposal concr. (mean case) slide 9 of 13

10 Impact assessment for a PE-corpus: characterization Abiotic depletion Acidification Eutrophication Global warming (GWP100) Ozone layer depletion Human toxicity Fresh water aquatic ecotox Marine aquatic ecotoxicity Terrestrial ecotoxicity Photochemical oxidation prod.- PE (mean case) use PE (mean case) disposal PE (mean case) slide 10 of 13

11 1. Introduction 2. Materials & Methods 3. Results & Discussion 4. Conclusion & Outlook slide 11 of 13

12 Conclusion The use of best, worst and mean cases allowed us to deal with a broad data range in an appropriate manner In view of the results the producers can benchmark their own performance Further data is collected for sprinkling filter, immersion trickle filter, and finishing treatment systems Finally, the data will be used for a comparison of central and decentral wastewater treatment plants slide 12 of 13

13 Thank you for your attention! For more questions: Technische Universität Dresden is validated according to EMAS regulations since January 2003, successful revalidation in December 2006 and in December Information: slide 13 of 13