Technology Roadmap for Sustainable Wastewater Treatment Plants in a Carbon-Constrained World - George V. Crawford

Resources end up in wastewater through inefficient consumption. As a result, wastewater contains reusable water, carbon (energy) and nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur) that could be recovered or reused. Meanwhile, current treatment objectives are to produce an acceptable quality of water for reuse or discharge at the lowest life cycle cost. Most of the current treatment processes manage carbon and nutrients as wastes to be removed, and do not attempt to capitalize on these resources inherent in wastewater. In the context of sustainability and climate change, the next generation of wastewater treatment processes should focus on resource recovery (water reuse, energy/carbon recovery and nutrient recovery) as much as they currently do on treatment. The future goal is for wastewater treatment of domestic wastewater to have a minimal carbon footprint, and to be 100% self–sustainable with regards to energy, carbon, and nutrients, while achieving a discharge or reuse quality that preserves the quality of the receiving waters. In May 2009, the Water Environment Research Foundation (WERF) convened a work group of international experts in the wastewater sector to develop a Wastewater Treatment Technology Roadmap which will identify possible routes to sustainable wastewater treatment in a carbon-constrained world. The resultant Technology Roadmap report identifies pathways toward sustainable wastewater systems over the next few decades, including various approaches the se
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