Science of the Total Environment 720 (2020) 137593

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Science of the Total Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv

Low complexity wastewater treatment process in developing countries:

A LCA approach to evaluate environmental gains
Thaís A.S. Lopes b, Luciano M. Queiroz a,b,⁎, Ednildo A. Torres b,c, Asher Kiperstok b
a
Department of Environmental Engineering, Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Aristides Novis Street 2, 4° floor, Federação, 40210-630, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
b
Energy and Environment Interdisciplinary Center (CIENAM), Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Barão de Jeremoabo Street n/a, Ondina, 40170-115, Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
c
Department of Chemical Engineering, Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Aristides Novis Street 2, 3° floor, Federação, 40210-630 Salvador, Bahia, Brazil

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• The construction phase should not be

excluded in LCA of low complexity tech-
nologies
• There is a correlation between nutrients
removal efficiency and Global Warming
Potential
• There is a trade-off between low opera-
tion consumption and air emissions

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Reliable Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) indicators for wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) construction and op-
Received 28 December 2019 eration phases are still a demand mainly in developing countries. Thus, the purpose of this paper was to present
Received in revised form 10 February 2020 and discuss the environmental performance of a full-scale WWTP installed in a Brazilian city using LCA approach.
Accepted 25 February 2020
The treatment process consists of a UASB reactor followed by constructed wetlands, which makes it particularly
Available online 26 February 2020
attractive to developing countries due to its operational simplicity. The Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) was developed
Editor: Konstantinos G Moustakas from a WWTP design and operation data including those of untreated wastewater and effluent quality. The re-
sults show that the environmental impacts from construction phase should not be neglected in LCA studies of
Keywords: low complexity treatment technologies (e.g. UASB reactor, constructed wetlands and pond systems). There is a
Life cycle assessment trade-off between the use of materials and energy for construction and the low energy and materials consump-
Constructed wetlands tion during the operation phase in these systems. The majority share of hydroelectric generation in the energy
UASB reactor matrix and the combination of anaerobic and natural processes for wastewater treatment have contributed to
Emissions a smaller impact potential for the operation phase. The LCA approach should be associated with plans and actions
Environmental impact

Abbreviations: AC, Acidification; AD, Abiotic depletion; BOD5, Biological oxygen demand; CED, Cumulative energy demand; COD, Chemical oxygen demand; CW, Constructed
wetlands; eq, Equivalent; EU, Eutrophication; FEW, Fresh water ecotoxicity; FU, Functional unit; GW, Global warming; GWP, Global warming potential; HSF, CW Horizontal subsurface
flow constructed wetlands; HT, Human toxicity; IPCC, Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change; ISO, International Organization for Standardization; kg, Kilogram; kWh, Kilowatt hour;
L, Liter; LCA, Life cycle assessment; LCI, Life cycle inventory; LCIA, Life cycle impact assessment; MAE, Marine aquatic ecotoxicity; OLD, Ozone layer depletion; PE, Equivalent
population; PO, Photochemical oxidation; SDG, Sustainable Development Goals; TE, Terrestrial ecotoxicity; tkm, Ton per kilometer; TKN, Total Kjeldahl nitrogen; TSS, total suspended
solids; UASB, Upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor; UNEP, United Nations; WWTP, Wastewater treatment plants.
⁎ Corresponding author at: Department of Environmental Engineering, Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), Aristides Novis Street 2, 4° floor, Federação, 40210-630 Salvador, Bahia,
Brazil.
E-mail addresses: lmqueiroz@ufba.br (L.M. Queiroz), ednildo@ufba.br (E.A. Torres).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137593
0048-9697/© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
2 T.A.S. Lopes et al. / Science of the Total Environment 720 (2020) 137593
to face the challenges of providing wastewater treatment in developing countries. Only in this way, compliance
with the eco-efficiency targets and protect public health will be guaranteed.
1. Introduction
Developing countries face major challenges when trying to meet re-
quirements, regarding the availability and sustainable management of
water and sanitation services. Recent data show that b50% of the sanita-
tion services are safely managed in these regions (UN, 2018). Therefore,
evaluating and improving the environmental performance of a small
WWTP is a challenge to developing countries that want to meet the
United Nations Sustainable Development goals (SDG) number 6.
The main objective of a WWTP is to improve the effluent quality. Ac-
cording to Noyola et al. (2012), in Latin America, 67% of the wastewater
treatment plants are small (influent flow b25 L.s−1) and very small (in-
fluent flow b5 L.s−1). However, the potential environmental impacts as-
sociated with the construction and operation phases of these facilities
often are not taken into account.
The Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is the most used methodology to
evaluate the environmental impacts of a WWTP (Morera et al., 2017).
The LCA stands out for being able to evaluate a WWTP beyond the
trade-off between process efficiency and final effluent quality because
it takes into consideration resource and energy consumption, air emis-
sions and waste generation (Foley et al., 2010). The LCA could help in
the selection of wastewater treatment processes, and support the
decision-making regarding environmental impacts, assessing the entire
life cycle of a WWTP and not just the effect of effluent discharge on
water bodies.
For practical purposes, a careful study of LCA can help to estimate the
environmental gains from the use of thermal or electrical energy in an-
aerobic reactors, or the recovery of nutrients such as struvite, or the en-
vironmental impacts of energy consumption in activated sludge
processes, for example.
According to Gallego-Schmid and Tarpani (2019), who analyzed 43
studies of LCA applied to wastewater treatment in developing countries,
the majority of the papers only evaluated conventional technologies
and did not include the construction phase; about 20% included net-
work collection; 53% included direct greenhouse gas emissions and
only three studies were from Brazil. The lack of specific databases, the
non-transparency of data, the absence of knowledge and interest of
the authorities when considering the LCA as a tool, and the non-
improvement of public policies in the sanitation sector contribute to
the low representativeness of WWT-related LCA studies in developing
countries.
In most LCA studies, the sewage collection and pumping system,
sludge management and direct greenhouse gas emissions were
neglected. Few papers include the construction phase and the ones
that evaluated both construction and operation phases showed that
the operation phase presented a greater impact potential. Furthermore,
about 50% of the papers do not include inventory data at all (Sabeen
et al., 2018; Gallego-Schmid and Tarpani, 2019). One of the limitations
on LCA applied to WWTP is the lack of a detailed Life Cycle Inventory
(LCI), which does not allow verifying the correlation of all input and out-
put flows with a functional unit (FU) and the Life Cycle Impact Assess-
ment (LCIA) results.
Data collection and the LCI elaboration are the most laborious and
limiting stages of LCA studies. The availability of reliable and represen-
tative data is not always possible, creating the need to make assump-
tions and look for literature data, which increases the uncertainty of
the final data and results. There is also a lack of certainty in the analysis
of the inventory data in the LCA studies applied to WWTP in developing
countries (Gallego-Schmid and Tarpani, 2019).
© 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
In the context of developing countries, it is necessary to incorporate
reliable LCA indicators and review previous studies to recognize key les-
sons and gaps. The LCA applied to WWTP needs to improve regarding
the description of sources, the technical parameters, and the elaboration
of local databases to be added to wider ones. Thus, there is a demand for
WWT-related LCA in developing countries, in special for a WWTP con-
struction and operation phases, due to the geographical diversity and
specific characteristics of these regions (Guérin-Schneider et al., 2018).
The UASB reactors followed by a post-treatment play a crucial role in
developing countries, due to their low operational cost and easy main-
tenance (Noyola et al., 2012). Therefore, the aim of this paper was
apply LCA to evaluate the environmental performance for construction
and operation phases of a full-scale WWTP composed of a UASB reactor
followed by constructed wetlands. The study included the sewage col-
lection and pumping system, pretreatment stage, biological sludge dis-
posal and effluent discharge.
2. Material and methods
The object was a full-scale WWTP (maximum flow rate equal to
3.3 L·s−1), located in a small community, in Bahia State, Brazil, which
has been operating since 2008 and treating domestic wastewater. The
wastewater treatment process is divided into four main steps: prelimi-
nary treatment (grit removal and sand traps), removal of soluble or-
ganic matter in the UASB reactors, nutrients removal in the
constructed wetlands and a disinfection step for pathogens removal.
The UASB reactor (3.8 × 3.8 m × 5.1 m) works as a primary settling
and a secondary treatment corresponds to a cross-section of 14.4 m2,
which has an effective volume of 73.6 m3 and a hydraulic retention
time of 8.5 h. The horizontal subsurface flow constructed wetlands
(HSF CW) consist of four parallel beds, each 7 m × 18 m, depth of
0.8 m and hydraulic retention time of 46.7 h. The support material
used for the CW beds is crushed gravel. Two cells were planted with
Typha sp. and other two were planted with Cyperus alternifolius sp.
The design flow rate is equal to 96 m3 per day. A low-power electrical
pump adds sodium hypochlorite solution (NaClO) for additional patho-
gens removal.
2.1. Goal and scope
The LCA according to the ISO 14040 (2006) was used to perform this
WWTP environmental analysis. The goal of the LCA was to perform an
environmental analysis of a full-scale WWTP, considering the construc-
tion and operation phases. The function of the system is to treat raw
wastewater in order to reduce pollutants and therefore meet the re-
quired standards of the Brazilian environmental legislation. The func-
tional unit was defined as the volume of 1.0 m3 of treated wastewater,
considering that the total volume of wastewater treated in the WWTP
was 700.800 m3 during a lifetime of 20 years. The cubic meter, as a func-
tional unit, was used because it comes from real data and agrees with
several papers that have applied LCA in WWTP (Hernández-Padilla
et al., 2017; Lorenzo-Toja et al., 2016; Arashiro et al., 2018).
The downstream system boundary included the following units: col-
lection and pumping of raw wastewater, pretreatment stage, a WWTP
with a disinfection step, sludge disposal and treated effluent discharge
for construction and operation phases, as shown in Fig. 1. The back-
ground system boundary included data from materials, chemical and
energy production from the Ecoinvent® version 3.1 datasets, system
model ‘allocation, default’ as a unit process, available in SimaPro 8.1®.
 T.A.S. Lopes et al. / Science of the Total Environment 720 (2020) 137593 3

Dismantling has been excluded of the analysis due to the lack of data Table 1
and because the WWTP is still in operation. Some authors assumed that Wastewater physicochemical characteristics.

the dismantling impact would be small when compared to the construc- Parameters Unit Inlet Outlet Removal
tion and operation phases (Foley et al., 2010; Garfí et al., 2017; Larrey- BOD5 concentration mg O2 L−1 321.5 21.3 93%
Lassalle et al., 2017). The allocation has not been used since the studied COD concentration mg O2 L−1 767.8 95.5 88%
WWTP does not have co-functions. TSS concentration mg TSS L−1 278.0 18.0 94%
Ammonia mg N-NH3 L−1 41.3 39.5 4%
Total Kjeldahl nitrogen mg TKN L−1 46.2 45.7 1%
2.2. Data quality requirements Total phosphorous mg TP L−1 7.3 7.9
Nitrate mg N-NO− 3 L
−1
1.8
Chlorine mg Cl2 L−1 0.8
According to the ISO 14040 (2006), data quality requirements are
necessary to demonstrate the reliability of the study results, and to
allow LCA interpretation to be performed properly. The data represents
The equations provided by the Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change
the actual scale of the system construction and operation, collected from
Report were used (IPCC, 2013).
the WWTP project. The laboratory analyses of the raw wastewater and
The general equation for estimating the CH4 emissions from CW for
effluent contributed to the representativeness, consistency and com-
domestic wastewater treatment is given by Eq. (1).
pleteness of the study.
The Standard Deviation values for the downstream system flows X   X  
were taken under basic uncertainty and pedigree matrix with the avail- CH4 emissions ¼ j TOW j  EF j þ j TOW j  EF j ð1Þ
able uncertainty factors in Simapro® 8.1, which considers the lognormal
probability distribution function by default. where:
CH4 emissions expressed in kg CH4 per year
TOWj = total organic load in domestic wastewater expressed in kg
2.3. Life cycle inventory
BOD or COD per year
EFj = emission factor, kg CH4 per kg BOD (for domestic wastewater)
The LCI included the following treatment steps: the analysis of
j = type of CW
the construction's material, the construction and operation of the
The CH4 emission factor for constructed wetlands is shown in
pretreatment stage, WWTP with a disinfection step (e.g. building
Eq. (2).
materials, air emissions, chemicals and energy use), the biological
sludge disposal and the treated effluent discharge. The LCI of the con-
EFj ¼ Bo  MCFj ð2Þ
struction phase used data collected from the WWTP project,
websites of manufacturers and construction materials. The LCI oper-
where:
ation phase used: the flow rate, physicochemical characteristics of
Bo = maximum CH4 producing capacity, kg CH4 per kg BOD or COD
the effluent, chemical and, energy consumed and air emissions. The
MCF = methane correction factor (fraction)
physicochemical parameters were biological oxygen demand
j = type of CW
(BOD 5 ), chemical oxygen demand (COD), total suspended solids
According to IPCC (2013), the default Bo value for domestic waste-
(TSS), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), ammonia, nitrate, total phos-
water is 0.6 kg CH4 per kg BOD. The methane correction factors (MCF)
phorus and chlorine (Table 1).
for HSF CW is equal to 0.1.
The biological sludge is discarded from the UASB reactors,
The general equation for estimating the N2O emissions from CW for
dewatered in geotextile bags for 21 days and sent for final disposal in
domestic wastewater treatment is given by Eq. (3).
a municipal landfill 22 (twenty-two) kilometers away from the WWTP.
The operation phase included the electricity and chemicals con- X  
sumed, the air and water emissions, and the transport of residues (bio- N2 O emissions ¼ j N j  EF j  44=28 ð3Þ
logical sludge, solid residues, sand and greases) to the landfill. The air
emissions, sludge generation and methane dissolved from the UASB re- where:
actor were calculated by the mass balance of the fractions of COD pro- N2O emission = kg N2O per year
posed by Lobato et al. (2012). The COD fractions load is shown in Nj = total nitrogen load in domestic wastewater (kg N per year)
Table 2. Nj = total nitrogen in industrial wastewater (kg N per year)
It was used an emission factor for kg CH4 per kg BOD and kg N2O-N EFj = emission factor, kg N2O-N/kg N
per kg N (for domestic wastewater) to calculate the methane (CH4) and j = type of CW
nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions from the constructed wetlands (CW). The factor 44/28 is the conversion of kg N2O-N into kg N2O.

Fig. 1. System boundaries.

4 T.A.S. Lopes et al. / Science of the Total Environment 720 (2020) 137593
Table 2
COD fractions result from mass balance.
COD fractions Contribution Load
Influent COD 100% 3.07 kg
Effluent COD 30% 0.92 kg
Biogas 42.5% 1.31 kg
Methane (CH4) Dissolved 7.9% 0.24 kg
Waste gas 2.2% 0.07 kg
Sulfate reduction 2.4% 0.07 kg
Biological Sludge 14.9% 0.46 kg
The N2O emission factor for HSF CW is 0.0079 kg N2O-N per kg N
(IPCC, 2013).
GHG emissions are important sustainable development indica-
tors for wastewater treatment plants. However, according to
Gallego-Schmid and Tarpani (2019), only half of the analyzed stud-
ies in developing countries included direct GHG emissions and 30%
estimated any N2O emissions. The direct CH4 emissions from UASB
reactors are difficult to estimate because of their measurements,
and due to the influence of specific site conditions, such as climate
and organic matter load. The direct CH4 emissions from the UASB re-
actor were based on mass balance, which was based on specific
Brazilian conditions, therefore increasing the representativeness of
the data. However, the same could not be done for the GHG emis-
sions from the CW, which were based on emission factors found
only in the literature (IPCC, 2013). Despite the GHG emissions from
the CW being influenced by soil, climate and plants management
(Mander et al., 2014), it was used the emissions factor from the liter-
ature. Although with some uncertainty, it is better to use data from
the literature than to exclude these direct emissions.
One of the premises of the CML method is that the carbon dioxide
produced by the degradation of organic matter present in wastewa-
ter is biogenic. Therefore, according to this method, this amount of
CO 2 is part of the natural carbon cycle and should not be counted
as a pollutant in emissions to air (Renou et al., 2008; FOLEY et al.,
2010). It is noteworthy that the CO2 produced in the UASB reactor
and constructed wetlands was considered biogenic and the quantity
is negligible when included in the natural carbon cycle on a plane-
tary scale. It is necessary to replace the support material (gravel) of
each CW bed every five years due to clogging. That has been taken
into account in the LCI and the contaminated gravel removed was
considered as waste (Table 3).
A detailed LCA is critical to the interpretation of results in the face of
material and energy flows, since the LCA intends to identify the impact
chain from extraction to final disposal. Therefore, it is necessary to know
which inputs, background processes and outputs are related to the po-
tential impacts shown in the results.
2.4. Life cycle impact assessment
The Impact Assessment was carried out using the CML 2 baseline
2000 and Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) assessment method pro-
vided in SimaPro® 8.1, which has been frequently used for midpoint im-
pact categories. Gallego-Schmid and Tarpani (2019) conducted an
extensive literature review and demonstrated that the CML impact as-
sessment method is one of the well-established methods for perfor-
mance tracking and the most applied in LCA related to WWTP in
developing countries. The contribution analysis was used for the inter-
pretation of the impact assessment results. The midpoint impact catego-
ries included in our study were: abiotic depletion (AD), global warming
(GW), ozone layer depletion (OLD), human toxicity (HT), fresh water
ecotoxicity (FWE), marine aquatic ecotoxicity (MAE), terrestrial
ecotoxicity (TE) photochemical oxidation (PO), Acidification (AC), eu-
trophication (EU).
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Impact assessment of the construction and operation phases
h−1
h−1 The Fig. 2 shows the impact potential of each wastewater treatment
h−1 step by using the CML method.
h−1 The result shows that impacts that are more relevant are the WWTP
h−1
construction and operation phases. The WWTP_Co shows the greatest
h−1
h−1 impact potential for Abiotic depletion, Ozone layer depletion, all toxicity
categories and Acidification, mainly, due to the use of reinforcing steel
during concrete production. Although several LCA studies in WWTP
point out that the operation phase has an impact potential greater
than the construction phase (Renou et al., 2008; Foley et al., 2010;
Lopsik, 2013; Limphitakphong et al., 2016).
The result shows that the WWTP_Co phase is responsible for a sig-
nificant potential impact, mainly recognizing that this configuration
(UASB + CW) is a low operational complexity WWTP. Cornejo et al.
(2013) analyzing a system composed by a UASB reactor and maturation
ponds, concluded that the construction phase has a greater impact than
the operation phase for embodied energy due to the low electricity and
material consumption needed to operate and maintain this system.
Lutterbeck et al. (2017) noted that 67% of the environmental impacts
were related to the construction phase of the WWTP, composed by a
UASB reactor combined with an anaerobic filter, subsurface constructed
wetlands, and disinfection with ultraviolet radiation.
Although low complexity treatment technologies require less en-
ergy, they occupy large areas and much raw material for their construc-
tion. Despite UASB reactors followed by post-treatment not being
common in Europe and developed countries, some authors highlight
the importance of evaluating the construction phase of CW (Dixon
et al., 2003; Lopsik, 2013). The construction phase should not be ex-
cluded in LCA studies of low complexity wastewater treatment technol-
ogies (e.g. UASB reactor, anaerobic filters, constructed wetlands and
stabilization pond systems). In such cases, there is a trade-off between
the use of materials and energy for the construction and the low energy
and materials consumption during the operation phase.
The WWTP_Op phase is responsible for a great impact potential for
Global warming (96%) and for Photochemical oxidation (94%) due to
methane (CH4) and dinitrogen monoxide (N2O) direct air emissions
(Fig. 2). One of the main characteristics of anaerobic reactors is the bio-
gas generation, mainly composed of CH4. The biogas generation in UASB
reactors plays an important role, since it can be positive, if this biogas is
recovered, or negative if this biogas is sent directly to the atmosphere.
Unfortunately, in most WWTPs built in developing countries, biogas is
sent to the atmosphere without treatment. Therefore, the search for
eco-efficiency in these WWTP needs to consider this aspect and seek
technological solutions for the use of biogas. However, one of the
main challenges in implementing the principles of circular economy in
small WWTP is how to take advantage of the biogas energy in small
WWTP without raising operating costs.
The impacts from Sewer system_Co and Sludge disposal_Op are neg-
ligible mainly due to low material and energy consumption. The studied
WWTP can be considered small and decentralized which means that the
sewer collection is provided by a free flow system without pumping, the
extension of the sewage collection network is approximately equal to
1.1 km it is not a significant source of CH4 emission as can be seen in
Fig. 2.
3.2. Energy consumption for the WWTP
The electricity consumption at the WWTP for the operation phase
was 0.18 kWh m−3, whereas for all WWT systems it was 0.30 kWh
m −3 . This result is below average for non-extensive treatments,
which explains the low impact potential of the operation phase for
some impact categories. When comparing the studies conducted in
Europe to the ones conducted in countries with an electricity mix
 T.A.S. Lopes et al. / Science of the Total Environment 720 (2020) 137593 5

Table 3
Life cycle inventory (LCI) of wastewater treatment system.

Inputs SDc Source

a
Sewer system_Co
Cement, Portland {RoW} 0.013 kg m−3 1.13 WWTP Project
Sand {GLO} 0.040 kg m−3 1.13
Gravel, crushed {GLO} 0.040 kg m−3 1.13
Tap water {RoW} 0.008 kg m−3 1.13
Extrusion, plastic pipes {GLO} 0.005 kg m−3 1.13

Pre treatment_Coa
Reinforcing steel {GLO} 0.002 kg m−3 1.13 WWTP Project
Cement, Portland {RoW} 0.007 kg m−3 1.13
Sand {GLO} 0.325 kg m−3 1.13
Gravel, crushed {GLO} 0.022 kg m−3 1.13
Tap water {RoW} 0.005 kg m−3 1.13
Extrusion, plastic pipes {GLO} 0.001 kg m−3 1.13
Sawnwood, hardwood, raw, kiln dried {RoW} 0.001 m3 m−3 1.13
Electricity, medium voltage {BR} 0.001 kWh m−3 1.13
Transport, freight, lorry N32 metric ton, {RoW} 0.003 tkm m−3 2.02

Pre treatment_Opb
Electricity, medium voltage {BR} 0.114 kWh m−3 1.13 WWTP Project
Transport, freight, lorry N32 metric ton, {RoW} 0.001 tkm m−3 2.34

WWTP_Coa
Reinforcing steel {GLO} 0.055 kg m−3 1.13 WWTP Project
Cement, Portland {RoW} 0.078 kg m−3 1.13
Sand {GLO} 0.704 kg m−3 1.13
Gravel, crushed {GLO} 1.479 kg m−3 1.13
Tap water {RoW} 0.053 kg m−3 1.13
Extrusion, plastic pipes {GLO} 0.002 kg m−3 1.13
Sawnwood, hardwood, raw, kiln dried {RoW} 0.001 m3 m−3 1.13
Brick {GLO} 0.003 kg m−3 1.13
Glass fibre {GLO} 0.001 kg m−3 2.07
Electricity, medium voltage {BR} 0.001 kWh m−3 1.13
Transport, freight, lorry N32 metric ton, {RoW} 0.010 tkm m−3 2.34

WWTP_Opb
Electricity, medium voltage {BR} 0.180 kWh m−3 1.06 WWTP Project
Gravel, crushed {GLO} 0.925 kg m−3 1.13
Sodium hypochlorite, without water, in 15% solution{GLO} 0.030 kg m−3 1.22

Air emissions
Methane, biogenic 0.351 kg m−3 1.32 Lobato et al., 2012
Dinitrogen monoxide 0.001 kg m−3 1.49 IPCC, 2013
Final waste
Waste, final, inert 0.925 kg m−3 1.63 Operation report
b
Sludge Disposal_Op
Sludge 0.115 kg m−3 1.52 Operation report
Transport, freight, lorry N32 metric ton, {RoW} 0.003 tkm m−3 2.34

Water emissions
Solids, inorganic 0.005 kg m−3 1.63 Lima et al., 2018
Nitrogen 0.001 kg m−3 1.63
Phosphorus 0.001 kg m−3 1.63
Potassium 0.001 kg m−3 1.63

Effluent Discharge_Coa
Cast iron {GLO} 0.003 kg m−3 1.13 WWTP Project
b
Effluent Discharge_Op
Electricity, medium voltage {BR} 0.137 kWh m−3 1.13 WWTP Project

Water emissions
BOD5, biological oxygen demand 0.021 kg m−3 1.5 Laboratory analysis
COD, chemical oxygen demand 0.096 kg m−3 1.5
TSS, suspended solids, unspecified 0.018 kg m−3 1.5
Nitrogen, total (TKN) 0.046 kg m−3 1.5
Nitrate 0.002 kg m−3 1.5
Phosphorus, total 0.008 kg m−3 1.5
Chlorine free 0.001 kg m−3 1.5 Operation report
Methane dissolved 0.136 kg m−3 1.5 Lobato et al., 2012

GLO means global and represents activities, which are considered to be an average valid for all countries in the world.
RoW represents the Rest-of-the-World. in Ecoinvent® database.
BR (Brazil) – geographic location.
a
Co = construction.
b
Op = Operation.
c
SD = Standard Deviation.
6 T.A.S. Lopes et al. / Science of the Total Environment 720 (2020) 137593
Fig. 2. Description of the WWTP impacts with the CML impact assessment method.
Legend: Co – Construction phase; Op – Operation phase.
based on renewable energy, it could be seen that the energy con-
sumption may not have a great potential impact during the WWTP
life cycle. According to Gallego-Schmid and Tarpani (2019), in the re-
view of a LCA applied to wastewater treatment, in developing coun-
tries the average electricity consumption for domestic wastewater
treatments was 0.42 kWh m −3, while in developed countries this
value was 0.50 kWh m−3.
The Brazilian electricity mix and its wastewater treatment technolo-
gies of low operational complexity, which does not present high energy
and materials consumption, contribute to a reduction of the impact po-
tential for some categories. Otherwise, these technologies would pro-
duce treated effluents with a slightly higher content of organic matter
and nutrients, which would compromise other impact categories, such
as Eutrophication.
Moreover, the results shows the WWTP_Co phase had a signifi-
cantly contribution to the Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) than
the operation phase (Fig. 3). The construction materials consump-
tion shows a significant impact potential because of the use of rein-
forcing steel, the cement Portland, and in less extension, the gravel.
The reinforcing steel has a greater impact potential because of the
production process, which includes the mining and the manufactur-
ing of the steel. Igos et al. (2014) show that the useful life of rein-
forced concrete and steel used in the infrastructure is an
important parameter since the infrastructure impact is amortized
over its lifetime. Therefore, the results highlight the importance of
including infrastructure in LCA related to WWTP in a transparent
and consistent manner, specifying what materials are included
and lifetime.
Fig. 3. Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) for the total WWT system. Legend: Co –
Construction phase; Op – Operation phase.
3.3. The contribution of air emissions and nutrient removal
The emissions from WWTP_Op, including direct and indirect emis-
sions, were 8.01 kg CO2-eq m−3 (Fig. 4), which is much higher than
the ones found in the literature. Cornejo et al. (2013) found 2.0 kg
CO2-eq m−3 of direct emissions when analyzing a WWTP composed
by a UASB reactor followed by a stabilization pond; the authors did
not include the N2O emissions. Nevertheless, Fuchs et al. (2011) com-
pared the vertical and horizontal flow constructed wetlands including
the CH4 e N2O emissions, and have shown that there was a huge influ-
ence on climate change when including the N2O emissions during the
operation phase.
It is worth mentioning that the CH4 production on the anaerobic
process depends primarily on the quantity of degradable organic matter
in the wastewater inflow, and on the temperature (between or higher
than 24-32 °C at local WWTP/Northeast of Brazil), and that the temper-
ature increases the CH4 production (IPCC, 2019). The UASB reactors are
the largest contributors to CH4 emissions if they are not recovered or
flared. According to Bressani-Ribeiro et al. (2019), the use of thermal en-
ergy for biogas recovery has proven to be a good alternative to mitigate
environmental impacts resulting from the use of UASB reactors and
small scale WWTP (2000 ≥ PE b 10,000 inhabitants). Furthermore, the
use of a UASB reactor as a pre-treatment for CW could prevent gravel
bed clogging and consequently reduce the formation of GHG in this sys-
tem. Since CH4 emissions are the most important air emissions, it is sug-
gested that a UASB reactor with CW could reduce the impacts of Global
warming and Photochemical oxidation.
The results point out the trade-off between the low operation con-
sumption and the air emissions from a UASB reactor as a pretreatment
of CW. Greenhouse gas emissions (e.g. CH4 and N2O) have a significant
impact on WWTP_Op. Therefore, wastewater treatment experts should
not neglect the air emissions in the assessment of the impacts from
WWTP, especially those that apply anaerobic route to some of the pro-
cess steps, such as sludge digestion, emphasizing the need to mitigate
the GHG direct emissions.
The results obtained from laboratory analysis on aliquots collected in
the studied WWTP showed that UASB reactors followed by HSF CW was
not effective in removing nitrogen and phosphorus. These macronutri-
ents present in a treated effluent were responsible for the Discharge_Op
impacts (98%) in the Eutrophication category as can be seen in Fig. 2.
The eutrophication potential was 0.046 kgPO4eq m−3 by treated waste-
water. This result is similar to the ones Cornejo et al. (2013) found for
the stabilization pond system (0.034 kgPO4eq m−3) and the UASB
followed by a stabilization pond (0.051 kgPO4eq m−3). Eutrophication
is considered as a key category in LCA studies of WWTP because its re-
sults define the trade-off between process efficiency and effluent
quality.
Fig. 4. Global warming (GWP100a) for the total WWT system. Legend: Co – Construction
phase; Op – Operation phase.
 T.A.S. Lopes et al. / Science of the Total Environment 720 (2020) 137593
The HSF CW are primarily designed to remove organics and
suspended solids and do not promote significant nutrient removal.
Proper management of macrophytes in CW beds contributes to better
nutrient removal. Considering the results, which have shown high
GWP for WWTP_Op, it is evident that there is a straight correlation be-
tween the nutrients removal efficiency and the Global warming poten-
tial. Saeed and Sun (2017) carried out a broad review of the literature on
nutrient removal in HSF CW. These authors concluded that the removal
of phosphorus was only possible with the insertion of P-adsorbing ma-
terials in the bed filter. Phosphorus is the limiting nutrient for the occur-
rence of eutrophication in aquatic environments; what explains the
high impact potential for Discharge_Op.
The LCA considers impacts in the local context to be as important as
those that occur far away and later on (Gallego-Schimid and Tarpani,
2019). The results are consistently by pointing out the potential envi-
ronmental impacts that play a role locally and globally for wastewater
treatment process studied. Furthermore, it stands out the relationship
between the potential impacts pointed out in the LCA study and the
planet's boundaries that already been transgressed, going therefore
against the safety of humanity. Some of those aspects are the climate
change, and nitrogen and phosphorus flows, which emphasize the im-
portance of evaluating and improving the environmental performance
of WWTP (Steffen et al., 2015).
The LCA does not prioritize any impact category for WWT, since it
would require knowledge of local specificities to determine priority ac-
tions for improving the environmental performance of the WWTP
(Rodriguez-Garcia et al., 2014). However, it is clear that the layout and
design of a wastewater treatment plant must be aligned with the con-
cepts of resource recovery. Moreover, the environmental laws and reg-
ulations established in developing countries need to integrate the life
cycle assessment, including not only discharge restrictions but also
how to stimulate the reduction of energy and water consumption, and
waste generation, besides enabling the recycling of nutrients, biogas re-
covery and water reclaim. One possible way is to follow some recom-
mendations of the European Water Framework Directive that
promoting integration of pollution prevention and control and environ-
mental analysis of WWTP.
Therefore, WWTP operation problems influence the results of the
impact assessment. For example, the clogging and the accumulation of
vegetation in the HSF CW beds, and the direct emissions of biogas with-
out burning or reuse decrease the environmental performance of the
studied system. However, the LCA studies applied to WWTP do not eval-
uate operational problems, as the tool does not measure whether the
operation is proper, which may result in a misinterpretation. The next
LCA studies should discuss if the WWT process is operating properly.
The LCA does not evaluate the efficiency of treatment technologies
and the operating conditions of the system. Given this, the importance
of a detailed LCI was highlighted, which reflects the efficiency and oper-
ational conditions of a WWTP. In a future work, it is recommended to
evaluate how to improve the process to develop the environmental per-
formance of a WWTP.
4. Conclusions
The lack of LCA studies applied to the analysis of a complete WWTS
composed by a UASB reactor as a pre-treatment of CW, and the repre-
sentativeness of data in developing countries represent barriers for
the dissemination of this tool in these regions. Considering significant
environmental impacts and the large wastewater treatment deficit in
Latin America, it is very important to create conditions to disseminate
LCA tools that can contribute to the evaluation and improvement of
the environmental performance of a WWTP in developing countries.
The results of a LCA study for the construction and operation phases
of a full-scale WWTP composed of a UASB reactor followed by con-
structed wetlands allowed to conclude that:
7
- The construction phase should not be excluded in LCA of low com-
plexity operational wastewater treatment technologies. The use of
materials and energy for construction is high when compared with
the low energy and materials consumption during the operation
phase. Furthermore, energy mix based on hydropower contributes
to the small impact potential of this phase.
- Air emissions from the UASB reactor have a great potential impact
on global warming, indicating the need to mitigate GHG direct emis-
sions. There is a correlation between nutrients removal efficiency
and Global warming potential. Therefore, WWTP operation prob-
lems influence the results of the impact assessment. LCA studies
should discuss if the WWT process is operating properly. The results
show a correlation between operation – GHG emissions – eutrophi-
cation.
- One of the main challenges for LCA studies to be used for wastewater
stakeholders in developing countries is to improve data quality.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
“This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de
Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - Brasil (CAPES) - Finance
Code 001”.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.137593.
References
Arashiro, L.T., Montero, N., Ferrer, I., Acién, F.G., Gómez, C., Garfí, M., 2018. Life cycle as-
sessment of high rate algal ponds for wastewater treatment and resource recovery.
Sci. Total Environ. 622–623, 1118–1130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
scitotenv.2017.12.051.
Bressani-Ribeiro, T., Mota Filho, C.R., de Melo, V.R., Bianchetti, F.J., Chernicharo, C.A.L.,
2019. Planning for achieving low carbon and integrated resources recovery from
sewage treatment plants in Minas Gerais, Brazil. J. Environ. Manag. 242, 465–473.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.04.103.
Cornejo, P.K., Zhang, Q., Mihelcic, J.R., 2013. Quantifying benefits of resource recovery
from sanitation provision in a developing world setting. J. Environ. Manag. 131,
7–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2013.09.043.
Dixon, A., Simon, M., Burkitt, T., 2003. Assessing the environmental impact of two options
for small-scale wastewater treatment: comparing a reedbed and an aerated biological
filter using a life cycle approach. Ecol. Eng. 20, 297–308. https://doi.org/10.1016/
S0925-8574(03)00007-7.
Foley, J., de Haas, D., Hartley, K., Lant, P., 2010. Comprehensive life cycle inventories of al-
ternative wastewater treatment systems. Water Res. 44, 1654–1666. https://doi.org/
10.1016/j.watres.2009.11.031.
Fuchs, V.J., Mihelcic, J.R., Gierke, J.S., 2011. Life cycle assessment of vertical and horizontal
flow constructed wetlands for wastewater treatment considering nitrogen and car-
bon greenhouse gas emissions. Water Res. 45, 2073–2081. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.watres.2010.12.021.
Gallego-Schmid, A., Tarpani, R.R.Z., 2019. Life cycle assessment of wastewater treatment
in developing countries: a review. Water Res. 153, 63–79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
watres.2019.01.010.
Garfí, M., Flores, L., Ferrer, I., 2017. Life cycle assessment of wastewater treatment systems
for small communities: activated sludge, constructed wetlands and high rate algal
ponds. J. Clean. Prod. 161, 211–219. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.05.116.
Guérin-Schneider, L., Tsanga-Tabi, M., Roux, P., Catel, L., Biard, Y., 2018. How to better in-
clude environmental assessment in public decision-making: lessons from the use of
an LCA-calculator for wastewater systems. J. Clean. Prod. 187, 1057–1068. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.03.168.
Hernández-Padilla, F., Margni, M., Noyola, A., Guereca-Hernandez, L., Bulle, C., 2017.
Assessing wastewater treatment in Latin America and the Caribbean: enhancing life
cycle assessment interpretation by regionalization and impact assessment sensibility.
J. Clean. Prod. 142, 2140–2153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.11.068.
Igos, E., Dalle, A., Tiruta-Barna, L., Benetto, E., Baudin, I., Mery, Y., 2014. Life cycle assess-
ment of water treatment: what is the contribution of infrastructure and operation
8 T.A.S. Lopes et al. / Science of the Total Environment 720 (2020) 137593
at unit process level? J. Clean. Prod. 65, 424–431. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
jclepro.2013.07.061.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2013. Adoption and acceptance of
the “2013 supplement to the 2006 guidelines: Wetlands”. Accepted Report. Thirty-
seventh Session of the IPCC. Georgia, 14–18 October 2013.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2019. 2019 Refinement to the 2006
IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse gas Inventories. Report. https://www.ipcc.
ch/report/2019-refinement-to-the-2006-ipcc-guidelines-for-national-greenhouse-
gas-inventories/, Accessed date: 19 August 2019.
International Standard ISO 14040, 2006. Environmental Management—Life Cycle Assess-
ment—Principle and Framework ISO14040:2006. (Geneva).
Larrey-Lassalle, P., Catel, L., Roux, P., Rosenbaum, R.K., Lopez-Ferber, M., Junqua, G.,
Loiseau, E., 2017. An innovative implementation of LCA within the EIA procedure: les-
sons learned from two wastewater treatment plants case studies. Environ. Impact As-
sess. Rev. 63, 95–106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2016.12.004.
Lima, B.C., Lima, L.M., Brandão, M.L., Zanta, V.M., Vich, D.V., Queiroz, L.M., 2018.
Composting as an alternative for final disposal of digested sludge from UASB reactors:
a case study in the small municipalities of the state of Bahia, Brazil. Waste Biom.
Valor. 9, 2275–2283. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-018-0410-y.
Limphitakphong, N., Pharino, C., Kanchanapiya, P., 2016. Environmental impact assess-
ment of centralized municipal wastewater management in Thailand. Int. J. Life
Cycle Assess. 21, 1789–1798. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-016-1130-9.
Lobato, L.C.S., Chernicharo, C.A.L., Souza, C.L., 2012. Estimates of methane loss and energy
recovery potential in anaerobic reactors treating domestic wastewater. Water Sci.
Technol. 66, 2745–2753. https://doi.org/10.2166/wst.2012.514.
Lopsik, K., 2013. Life cycle assessment of small-scale constructed wetland and extended
aeration activated sludge wastewater treatment system. Int. J. Life Cycle Assess. 10,
1295–1308. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13762-012-0159-y.
Lorenzo-Toja, Y., Vázquez-Rowe, I., Amores, M.J., Termes-Rifé, M., Marín-Navarro, D.,
Moreira, M.T., Feijoo, G., 2016. Benchmarking wastewater treatment plants under
an eco-efficiency perspective. Sci. Total Environ. 566-567, 468–479. https://doi.org/
10.1016/j.scitotenv.2016.05.110.
Lutterbeck, C.A., Kist, L.T., Lopez, D.R., Zerwes, F.V., Machado, E.L., 2017. Life cycle assess-
ment of integrated wastewater treatment systems with constructed wetlands in rural
areas. J. Clean. Prod. 148, 527–536. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.02.024.
Mander, Ü., Dotro, G., Ebie, Y., Towprayoon, S., Chiemchaisri, C., Nogueira, S.F., Mitsch,
W.J., 2014. Greenhouse gas emission in constructed wetlands for wastewater treat-
ment: a review. Ecol. Eng. 66, 19–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoleng.2013.12.006.
Morera, S., Corominas, L., Rigola, M., Poch, M., Comas, J., 2017. Using a detailed inventory
of a large wastewater treatment plant to estimate the relative importance of con-
struction to the overall environmental impacts. Water Res. 122, 614–623. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2017.05.069.
Noyola, A., Padilla-Rivera, A., Morgan-Sagastume, J.M., Güereca, L.P., Hernández-Padilla, F.,
2012. Typology of municipal wastewater treatment technologies in Latin America.
Clean: Soil, Air, Water 40, 926–932. https://doi.org/10.1002/clen.201100707.
Renou, S., Thomas, J.S., Aoustin, E., Pons, M.N., 2008. Influence of impact assessment
methods in wastewater treatment LCA. J. Clean. Prod. 16, 1098–1105. https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2007.06.003.
Rodriguez-Garcia, G., Frison, N., Vázquéz-Padín, J.R., Hospido, A., Garrido, J.M., Fatone, F.,
Bolzonella, D., Moreira, M.T., Feijoo, G., 2014. Life cycle assessment of nutrient re-
moval technologies for the treatment of anaerobic digestion supernatant and its inte-
gration in a wastewater treatment plant. Sci. Total Environ. 490, 871–879. https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.05.077.
Sabeen, A.H., Noor, Z.Z., Ngadi, N., Almuraisy, S., Raheem, A.B., 2018. Quantification of en-
vironmental impacts of domestic wastewater treatment using life cycle assessment: a
review. J. Clean. Prod. 190, 221–233. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.04.053.
Saeed, T., Sun, G., 2017. A comprehensive review on nutrients and organics removal from
different wastewaters employing subsurface flow constructed wetlands. Crit. Rev. En-
viron. Sci. Technol. 47, 203–288. https://doi.org/10.1080/10643389.2017.1318615.
Steffen, W., Richardson, K., Rockström, J., Cornell, S.E., Fetzer, I., Bennett, E.M., Biggs, R.,
Carpenter, S.R., Sörlin de Vries, W., Wit, C.A., Folke, C., Gerten, D., Heinke, J., Mace,
G.M., Persson, L.M., Ramanathan, V., Reyers, B., Sorling, S., 2015. Planetary bound-
aries: guiding human development on a changing planet. Science 347. https://doi.
org/10.1126/science.1259855.
United Nations, 2018. The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2018 (New York).