Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a valuable decision-support tool for both policy makers and industries in assessing the lifespan impacts of a product or process.
With lots of water recycling projects that GHD has done and is doing in the industrial area, gaining a better understanding of the impacts of the wastewater treatment technologies could enable us to assess different water recycling options from a sustainability, as well as a whole of life cost perspective.
This paper outlines results of the LCA through a beverage industry wastewater treatment plant, with a flow rate of 2.2 ML/day. Wastewater in this plant is treated through the main processes of high rate granular anaerobic system, high rate fixed film aerobic system, microfiltration and reverse osmosis. The Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) of the plant, including the assembly and operational environmental impacts was inspected and developed using vendor data and SimaPro software. This inventory has been constructed using the Australian life cycle inventory database developed from 1998 to 2004 by RMIT’s Centre for Design. The results of this environmental assessment are being used to identify the main causes of environmental impact, in terms of the global warming, ozone layer depletion, water source consumption, wastewater discharge and land occupation. It also highlighted potential financial savings by reducing environmental costs in the supply chain. The current study provides valuable information for engineers working in the water and wastewater field to identify the potential steps towards a more sustainable design.