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.