Life cycle assessment as a focusing and improvement tool as applied to wastewater treatment

摘要

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a systematic way to evaluate the environmental impacts of products or processes by following a scientific methodology in which the impacts are quantified. Another use of LCA is as a targeting tool to highlight the areas in a process with a high environmental burden. This paper demonstrates the application of this approach to the recycling of water. It was shown that most of the environmental impacts could be traced to the operations stage and this was due to the electrical input to this stage. The three largest electricity using processes were identified as being the largest contributors to the environmental profile of the plant and were targeted for environmental improvement. It was shown that by making process changes large environmental savings could be achieved.