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Sustainable Management of Waste and Wastewater through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA)

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Resources and Sustainable Utilization".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2016) | Viewed by 15930

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Prof. Dr. Giovanni De Feo

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Guest Editor

Department of Industrial Engineering (DIIN), University of Salerno, 84084 Fisciano, SA, Italy
Interests: circular economy; environmental communication; life-cycle assessment; recycling; waste management; water and wastewater in ancient civilizations; water supply
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The sustainable management of waste and wastewater is a very important topic that requires an adequate approach to be effectively addressed. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) offers a great opportunity to give a concrete support to decision makers. LCA is a general methodological framework able to assess all the environmental impacts related to a product, process, or activity by identifying, quantifying, and evaluating the overall resources consumed, as well as all the emissions and wastes released into the environment. Consequently, opportunities for optimizing the environmental impacts of waste and wastewater management, whilst maintaining process functionality, can be realized with the LCA. This Special Issue aims to publish novel research on the application of LCA to waste and wastewater sectors. Both large- and small-scale waste and wastewater facilities are encompassed by the Special Issue’s scope. Papers selected for this Special Issue are subject to a rigorous peer review procedure with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of the research results.

Topics to be addressed may include, but are not limited to, the following:

LCA studies of large wastewater treatment plants;
LCA studies of medium wastewater treatment plants;
LCA studies of small wastewater treatment plants;
LCA studies of very small domestic wastewater treatment plants;
LCA studies of wastewater treatment alternatives;
LCA studies of urban waste management scenarios;
LCA studies of industrial waste management scenarios;
LCA studies of urban and industrial waste treatment alternatives;
etc.

Dr. Giovanni de Feo
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

comparative analysis
domestic wastewater
environmental impacts
functional unit
goal and scope definition
industrial waste
industrial wastewater
inventory analysis
LCA
Life Cycle Assessment
life cycle impact assessment
management scenarios
system boundary
urban waste
urban wastewater
waste
waste management
wastewater
wastewater management

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

372 KiB

Open AccessArticle

LCA of the Collection, Transportation, Treatment and Disposal of Source Separated Municipal Waste: A Southern Italy Case Study

by Giovanni De Feo, Carmen Ferrara, Cristina Iuliano and Alberto Grosso

Sustainability 2016, 8(11), 1084; https://doi.org/10.3390/su8111084 - 25 Oct 2016

Cited by 27 | Viewed by 5378

Abstract

This study performed a Life Cycle Assessment of the collection, transport, treatment and disposal of source-separated municipal waste (MW) in Baronissi, a town of 17,000 inhabitants in the Campania region of Italy. Baronissi is a high-performing town in a region with scarcity of MW facilities. The environmental impacts were assessed with three different methods—IPCC 2007, Ecological Footprint and ReCiPe 2008—in order to evaluate how they influence the results as well as how the global warming affects the results, since it is one of the major environmental concerns of people. The obtained results showed how the presence of facilities in the area is fundamental. Their lack means high environmental loads due to the transportation of materials for long distances, particularly for the organic fraction. The presence of a composting plant at 10 km from the municipality would result in a decrease of 65% of the impacts due to the external transport, regardless of the evaluation method. The results obtained with ReCiPe 2008 and Ecological Footprint agreed, while those obtained with IPCC 2007 were very different since global warming is strongly affected by the transport phase. IPCC 2007 does not allow to take into account the advantages obtainable with a good level of separate collection. Considering a single impact evaluation method, there is a high risk of coming to misleading conclusions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Management of Waste and Wastewater through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA))

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1075 KiB

Open AccessCommunication

Sustainable Optimization for Wastewater Treatment System Using PSF-HS

by Zong Woo Geem and Jin-Hong Kim

Sustainability 2016, 8(4), 321; https://doi.org/10.3390/su8040321 - 31 Mar 2016

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 4128

Abstract

The sustainability in a river with respect to water quality is critical because it is highly related with environmental pollution, economic expenditure, and public health. This study proposes a sustainability problem of wastewater treatment system for river ecosystem conservation which helps the healthy survival of the aquatic biota and human beings. This study optimizes the design of a wastewater treatment system using the parameter-setting-free harmony search algorithm, which does not require the existing tedious value-setting process for algorithm parameters. The real-scale system has three different options of wastewater treatment, such as filtration, nitrification, and diverted irrigation (fertilization), as well as two existing treatment processes (settling and biological oxidation). The objective of this system design is to minimize life cycle costs, including initial construction costs of those treatment options, while satisfying minimal dissolved oxygen requirements in the river, maximal nitrate-nitrogen concentration in groundwater, and a minimal nitrogen requirement for crop farming. Results show that the proposed technique could successfully find solutions without requiring a tedious setting process. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Management of Waste and Wastewater through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA))

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1157 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Two On-Site Small-Scale Activated Sludge Total Oxidation Systems in Plastic and Vibrated Reinforced Concrete

by Giovanni De Feo, Carmen Ferrara and Giovanni Iuliano

Sustainability 2016, 8(3), 212; https://doi.org/10.3390/su8030212 - 26 Feb 2016

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 5665

Abstract

This study proposes a comparison of the environmental impacts calculated with the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology of two on-site small-scale activated sludge total oxidation systems in linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) and vibrated reinforced concrete (VRC). The plants were designed to ensure a treatment capacity of 5, 10, 20 and 30 equivalent inhabitants (PE). The main aim of the study was to evaluate the incidence of construction, disposal and operation phases on the total impacts evaluated with three different methods: ReCiPe 2008, Ecological Footprint and IPCC 2007 100 years. The most significant phase for both treatment lines was the use phase, which contributed more than 80% to the total impacts. The construction phase was the second most impactful phase with an incidence less than 25% for both systems and for all the considered impacts assessment methods. The plant in LLDPE was more eco-friendly than that in (VRC). The plant in VRC was always most impactful, even comparing each single phase of the life cycle and for all the treatment capacities taken into consideration. Finally, the obtained results were not dependent on the impact assessment method considered. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Management of Waste and Wastewater through Life Cycle Assessment (LCA))

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