Abstract
The treatment of wastewater, financed through environmental taxes, is key to the development of a sustainable economy. The objective of this study is to verify whether the tax loads on wastewater discharges applied in Spain are effective, allowing the costs of secondary and tertiary treatments to be financed. First, the revenues collected from taxes related to the discharge of wastewater in the different Spanish regions, which reach an average value of 0.72 €/m3, are analysed. Second, the costs of secondary wastewater treatment, prolonged aeration, activated sludge with nutrient removal, and activated sludge without nutrient removal are studied. Additionally, the costs of tertiary treatments, with environmental objectives and for reuse purposes, are considered. The analysis carried out reveals high heterogeneity in the amounts collected through taxes in the different Autonomous Communities. In some cases, these amounts do not cover the costs of the treatments. An urgent review is therefore required of the financing systems applied in order to secure a level of income that can cover all the exploitation and investment costs incurred.
Highlights
The importance of water for human development, the environment, and the economy justifies that the UN considers “clean water and sanitation” to be one of the 17 global objectives of the new agenda for sustainable development 2030 to guarantee universal access to safe, affordable drinking water [1]
They are average values for each region and include the amounts charged to users for the following items: (i) sewerage service, (ii) wastewater treatment, and (iii) ecological taxes charged by different institutions. The latter include the sanitation fee established by the relevant regional authority to cover the construction and maintenance of WWTP. They include the taxes for discharging treated wastewater into the Public Water Resources
Spain, which are very different between the different Autonomous Communities
Summary
The importance of water for human development, the environment, and the economy justifies that the UN considers “clean water and sanitation” to be one of the 17 global objectives of the new agenda for sustainable development 2030 to guarantee universal access to safe, affordable drinking water [1]. There is extensive regulation on the use of water resources and discharges to them, as well as the parameters of the quality of treated wastewater [8]. This regulation is developed under Directive 91/271/EEC on the treatment of urban wastewater and Water Framework Directive 2000/60/EC (WFD), and approved under the principle of cost recovery of water-related services. It includes the environmental cost associated with the negative impact on the resource in accordance with the “polluter pays” principle. The adoption of European regulation has influenced the standards of different countries, involving an improvement of
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