ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY OF RURAL WASTEWATER-TREATMENT PLANTS VIA LIFE-CYCLE ASSESSMENT WITH EMPHASIS ON CONSTRUCTED WETLANDS

Sustainability plays a pivotal role in environmental engineering and management. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) serves as a valuable methodology for evaluating the environmental footprint of products, services, or processes throughout their life cycles. LCA offers a quantitative approach and aids in identifying strategies that address environmental challenges rather than merely transferring them. It proves particularly relevant for assessing the sustainability and design of wastewater treatment systems. This study employs the LCA framework to compare various wastewater treatment options suitable for small, decentralized areas. Specifically, the focus lies on evaluating the constructed wetland (CW) within the wastewater treatment (WWT) system across its three main phases: construction, operation, and decommissioning. The investigation examines the impact on diverse environmental categories such as abiotic depletion, global warming, ozone layer depletion, human toxicity, freshwater aquatic ecotoxicity, marine aquatic ecotoxicity, terrestrial ecotoxicity, photochemical oxidation, acidification, and eutrophication, adhering to LCA standards. Findings reveal that natural wastewater treatment methods exhibit lower environmental footprints due to their reduced resource requirements. However, the construction phase of the CW emerges as the primary contributor to most impact categories, accounting for 89% of the overall impact. Notably, marine aquatic ecotoxicity ranks as the most significant impact category, while ozone layer depletion and photochemical oxidation potentials exhibit minimal values.