Faculty of Business and Economics, Chair of Business Administration, esp. Environmental Management and Accounting

„Life cycle assessment (LCA)

of small wastewater treatment plants“

Budapest, 1st March 2011

Rebecca Schubert,

Martin Nowack, Prof. Dr. Edeltraud Guenther

Chair of Business Administration slide 2 of 13Environmental Management and Accounting

1. Introduction

2. Materials & Methods

3. Results & Discussion

4. Conclusion & Outlook

Chair of Business Administration slide 3 of 13Environmental Management and Accounting

Future settlement structures and urban drainage are challenged by a

multitude of future challenges:

• Climate change

• Demographic change

• Decreasing water demand

Widely discussed adaption option for rural and non-connected households

is the installation of Small Wastewater Treatment Plants (SWWTP):

• Shorter life time (increasing the flexibility to deal with uncertainty)

• Lower investment costs (under certain circumstances)

No data on the ecological performance of SWWTP is available:

• Conduction of a survey among the producers of SWWTP to develop a life cycle inventory

Chair of Business Administration slide 4 of 13Environmental Management and Accounting

1. Introduction

2. Materials & Methods

3. Results & Discussion

4. Conclusion & Outlook

Chair of Business Administration slide 5 of 13Environmental Management and Accounting

Sequencing batch reactor

Sewage

production

Sewage

transport

Batch Ventilation

SedimentationClear-water

pull-off

Energy

consumption

Sewage

sludge

Water

disposal

Schematic illustration of a

sequencing batch reactor

Sequencing batch reactor (Picture: Martin Nowack)

Chair of Business Administration slide 6 of 13Environmental Management and Accounting

Transport of the plants

Transport Dataworst

case

best

case

mean

case

Number of plants

per vehicle8 3 3 8 6

Distance in km 350 100100-

600600 100 267

Distance per transported

plant in km200 12,5 48,48

Chair of Business Administration slide 7 of 13Environmental Management and Accounting

1. Introduction

2. Materials & Methods

3. Results & Discussion

4. Conclusion & Outlook

Chair of Business Administration slide 8 of 13

WWTP – concrete (best case)

WWTP – PE (mean case)

WWTP – concrete (worst case) WWTP – PE (best case)

Abiotic

depletion

Acidification Eutrophication Global warming

(GWP100)

Ozone layer

depletion

Human toxicity Fresh water

aquatic ecotox

Marine aquatic

ecotoxicity

Terrestrial

ecotoxicity

Photochemical

oxidation

WWTP – concrete (mean case)

WWTP – PE (worst case)

Environmental Management and Accounting

Impact assessment for concrete and PE-container: normalized

Chair of Business Administration slide 9 of 13Environmental Management and Accounting

disposal – concr. (mean case)

Abiotic

depletion

Acidification Eutrophication Global warming

(GWP100)

Ozone layer

depletion

Human toxicity Fresh water

aquatic ecotox

Marine aquatic

ecotoxicity

Terrestrial

ecotoxicity

Photochemical

oxidation

use – concr. (mean case)production- conr. (mean case)

Impact assessment for a concrete container: characterization

Chair of Business Administration slide 10 of 13Environmental Management and Accounting

disposal – PE (mean case)

Abiotic

depletion

Acidification Eutrophication Global warming

(GWP100)

Ozone layer

depletionHuman toxicity Fresh water

aquatic ecotox

Marine aquatic

ecotoxicity

Terrestrial

ecotoxicityPhotochemical

oxidation

use – PE (mean case)prod.- PE (mean case)

Impact assessment for a PE-corpus: characterization

Chair of Business Administration slide 11 of 13Environmental Management and Accounting

1. Introduction

2. Materials & Methods

3. Results & Discussion

4. Conclusion & Outlook

Chair of Business Administration slide 12 of 13Environmental Management and Accounting

Conclusion

• The use of best, worst and mean cases allowed us to deal with a

broad data range in an appropriate manner

• In view of the results the producers can benchmark their own

performance

• Further data is collected for sprinkling filter, immersion trickle filter,

and finishing treatment systems

• Finally, the data will be used for a comparison of central and

decentral wastewater treatment plants

Chair of Business Administration slide 13 of 13Environmental Management and Accounting

Technische Universität Dresden is validated according to EMAS

regulations since January 2003, successful revalidation in

December 2006 and in December 2009. Information: http://tu-

dresden.de/die_tu_dresden/umweltschutz?set_language=en&cl=en

Thank you for your attention!

For more questions: www.tu-dresden.de/wwbwlbu/en

E-Mail: ema@mailbox.tu-dresden.de