Life cycle assessment of a common effluent treatment plant: Case study of Mahad, India

Abstract

Common effluent treatment plants (CETPs) offer extensive benefits for wastewater treatment in developing countries in terms of cost-effectiveness, industrial synergy, and resource conservation. Evaluating the performance of CETPs is essential to ensure sustainable practices in wastewater management. The present study aims to assess the environmental impacts of a CETP situated in Maharashtra, India, using the life cycle assessment method (LCA) as per ISO 14040:14044. The plant comprises a primary, secondary, and tertiary treatment unit along with a sludge handling unit. The inventory analysis was performed using the averaged data collected from the plant for a year. The secondary inputs were taken from the GaBi 10.6 database suited to the Indian context. The study employed a gate-to-grave LCA approach and the functional unit was assumed to be 1000 m3 of treated water. The impact analysis was conducted with the help of the CML 2001: Aug 2016 method. It was found that the primary and secondary treatment units offered the highest environmental burden. Both the treatment units contribute about 70–80 % to all the categories except for ADP-elemental, where the contribution is about 98 %. Electricity was identified as a predominant factor contributing to the impacts under most midpoint categories except for ADP-elemental. A scenario analysis was undertaken to estimate the possibility of adapting to renewable energy to reduce environmental footprints. The impacts generated under such a scenario were lower than the original observations, except for the ADP–elemental category. The study emphasizes how LCA helps optimize areas under investigation and fosters sustainable treatment practices in wastewater treatment.

Keywords

• Common Effluent Treatment Plant
• Life Cycle Assessment
• Environmental Impacts
• Wastewater