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Life cycle assessment of a wastewater hybrid system for rural communities, Marcelino Maridueña case of study

Abstract:

Wastewater management (WWM) is an issue in low and middle-income countries' rural areas; the lack of technology and funding have been identified as the most critical. Marcelino Maridueña (MM) is a rural village in Ecuador that uses an oxidation pond to treat its household wastewater. As a result, the organic load in the effluent varies depending on the season and the volume treated. Also, it may generate emissions that could harm the environment. Therefore, a hybrid system, i.e., activated sludge (conventional) coupled with an algal photobioreactor system (APS), was developed at a laboratory scale. This study's target was to assess the environmental impact of the developed hybrid system, i.e., the impact of the hybrid system versus a solely a conventional system. Notably, the ecological footprint of the APS alternative may vary depending on the climate. In this study, the APS was fixed for a tropical region with warm temperatures ranging from 25 to 45 °C and plenty of solar light. The environmental impact categories were identified in literature and then analyzed through a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology. The model demonstrates a percent reduction in most impact categories from switching to the proposed hybrid wastewater system. The percent reductions modeled were as follows: Freshwater Eutrophication would be reduced by 98.09%, Marine Eutrophication would be reduced by 98.61%, and Human Non-carcinogenic Toxicity would be reduced by 98.45% between the proposed and the current system of wastewater treatment.