Abstract
The current exploitation of freshwater, as well as the significant increase in sewage sludge production from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), represent nowadays a critical issue for the implementation of sustainable development consistent with the circular economy concept. There is an urgent need to rethink the concept of WWTPs from the conventional approach consisting in pollutant removal plants to water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs). The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the demonstration case studies at the Marineo and Corleone WRRFs in Sicily (IT), with the final aim showing the effectiveness of the resources recovery systems, as well as the importance of plant optimization to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from WRRFs. This study is part of the H2020 European Project “Achieving wider uptake of water-smart solutions—Wider-Uptake”, which final aim is to demonstrate the water-smart solution feasibility in the wastewater sector. The main project goal is to overcome the existing barriers that hamper the transition to circularity through the implementation of a governance analysis tool. The preliminary actions in the two demonstration cases are first presented, while, subsequently, the water-smart solutions to be implemented are thoroughly described, highlighting their roles in the transition process. The achieved preliminary results underlined the significant potential of WRRF application, a great chance to demonstrate the feasibility of innovative solutions in the wastewater sector to overcome the existing social, administrative and technical barriers.
Highlights
Nowadays, the exploitation of freshwater sources and the consistent expansion in the sewage sludge generation from wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) are significant ecological concerns and represent a challenge for sustainable growth [1]
Wastewater treatment is becoming a key platform for paving the way towards sociotechnical developments that focus on the global production system transformation from a linear economy model to a circular one [3,4,5]
In a circular economy vision, the resources lost with waste streams can be recovered/reused, reducing the adoption of resources coming from the primary sources [6,7,8]
Summary
The exploitation of freshwater sources and the consistent expansion in the sewage sludge generation from wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) are significant ecological concerns and represent a challenge for sustainable growth [1]. By applying the concept of circular economy and resource recovery to wastewater management systems, wastewater can be considered as a renewable resource from which water; energy and materials (e.g., nutrients, biopolymers and cellulose) can be recovered [3]. Wastewater treatment is becoming a key platform for paving the way towards sociotechnical developments that focus on the global production system transformation from a linear economy model to a circular one [3,4,5]. In a circular economy vision, the resources lost with waste streams (treated water, sludge and nutrients) can be recovered/reused, reducing the adoption of resources coming from the primary sources [6,7,8]. The new paradigm is the conversion from wastewater treatment plants to water resource recovery facilities (WRRF) [9,10,11]. It is assumed that a WRRF ( known as “wastewater biorefinery” or “water resource factory”)
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