in what ways was resource recovery happening at the wastewater treatment plant

As leaders in the sector realize the potential of wastewater, the entire wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) model is shifting to a more efficient water resource recovery facility (WRRF) model, which uses biochemical, physical, physicochemical, and biological conversion processes to extract value from previously unexploited streams.

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What is resource recovery from wastewater treatment?

Jun 04, 2015 · One of the prominent barriers is advancing innovative technologies that can be used reliably and economically for resource recovery. Traditionally, wastewater treatment plants have been publicly owned entities, and the adoption of new technologies has been viewed with skepticism because of a fear of failure resulting in a loss of trust by ratepayers.

What happens to wastewater in a treatment plant?

Dec 13, 2019 · As leaders in the sector realize the potential of wastewater, the entire wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) model is shifting to a more efficient water resource recovery facility (WRRF) model, which uses biochemical, physical, physicochemical, and biological conversion processes to extract value from previously unexploited streams.

Can wastewater be reused as a resource?

Nov 07, 2013 · From wastewater treatment to resource recovery. Dr. James Barnard, often referred to as the 'father of biological nutrient removal,' pioneered the process that today is used in thousands of wastewater treatment plants around the world to remove nitrogen and phosphorus without the use of chemicals. Turn on the tap; clean water comes out.

What resources can be recovered from WWT?

Nov 20, 2020 · Resource Recovery. In recent decades, the wastewater sector has moved away from the idea of wastewater treatment plants as waste disposal facilities, instead envisioning these plants as water resource recovery facilities (WRRFs). WRRFs can produce clean water, recover nutrients (such as phosphorus and nitrogen), and potentially reduce fossil fuel …

What is Resource Recovery wastewater?

How can resources be recovered?

How can we recover nutrients from wastewater?

What are three resources that can be recovered from domestic sewage?

What is an example of recovery of waste?

What is an example of resource recovery?

How can nitrogen be recovered from wastewater?

Why is it necessary to remove nutrients from wastewater?

How do you restore nitrogen?

Which components of wastewater pollution are commonly recovered and reused as resources?

What are the steps of wastewater treatment?

What does a wastewater treatment plant do?

What is the sludge in WWTP?

At WWTPs, most of the organic matter is removed from the wastewater as sludge. At the biggest WWTP of Amsterdam, WWTP Amsterdam West, sludge from a wider region is collected and treated. At WWTP Amsterdam West sludge is currently treated using a mesophilic digester. After part of the water in the sludge has been removed the sludge is digested producing biogas. Most of the biogas are used for combined heat and power production. Part of the biogas cannot be used or stored directly and is therefore lost as gas flare. In 2013 gas flare was around 3% of the total biogas production. The rest of the biogas was upgraded to green gas, which has a higher methane content than biogas and can therefore be used as a transportation fuel.

What is phase A in wastewater?

Phase A comprises steps 1 and 2, and focuses on the description and analysis of the current situation and perceived problems. As the focus is on materials and material flows in the wastewater chain of Amsterdam, Material Flow Analysis (MFA) was used as tool in phase A. MFA describes and quantifies the material flows through a defined system ( Chevre et al., 2013 ). Since MFA is an indispensable first step for creating a system with increased resource efficiency and reduced losses ( Cooper and Carliell-Marquet, 2013) and since quantification of the pathway of substances through the socioeconomic system is essential for the selection of appropriate measures to mitigate discharge of this substance ( Yuan et al., 2011 ), MFA was chosen as the starting point for improvement of the resource circularity for Amsterdam’s wastewater chain.

What is material flow analysis?

A material flow analysis is the basis for the development of the strategies, as it gives insights into the organic matter and phosphorus flows in the Amsterdam’s wastewater chain. In the next step, the selection of measures to recover resources, the measures can be characterized by use of nine specific criteria, focusing on changes in material flows, recovered products and implementation horizons. The final step is to define specific strategies focusing on the recovery of a specific product. In the Amsterdam case these were alginic acid, bioplastic, cellulose or phosphorus. The use of a strategy diagram, which shows the composition of a strategy and describes how each measure contributes to the strategy, shows to be a very useful tool to distinguish between lock-in measures, no regret measures and win–win measures. These lock-in, no-regret and win–win measures have to be considered when developing a coherent and adaptive resource recovering policy. They show that some measures can be implemented without regrets later on and that other choices are more difficult to undo. The strategy diagram presents measures’ interactions in a well-organized way in which the possible order of measures and choices becomes clear.

Why are resources becoming scarce?

Resources are becoming increasingly scarce ( Fixen, 2009 ). Population and economic growth have led to a higher demand of resources, which puts more stress on resource supply and on the environment ( Kennedy et al., 2007 ). Resource stocks are shrinking and resource extractions are negatively affecting the environment ( Kennedy et al., 2007, Alfonso Pina and Pardo Martinez, 2014 ). Therefore, reuse of resources is becoming more and more attractive.

Is wastewater a resource?

Wastewater can be used as a resource, since it contains many resources like organic matter, phosphorus, nitrogen, heavy metals, thermal energy, etc. This study focused on the reuse of organic matter and phosphorus from Amsterdam’s wastewater. There is a wide variety of possible alternatives, and the technical options are growing.

Is Amsterdam a good place to recover wastewater?

Amsterdam’s wastewater offers a huge potential for resource recovery.

Is there an overview of Amsterdam's wastewater?

Currently information is lacking to develop such a coherent policy. Firstly, there is no overview of the resources in Amsterdam’s wastewater, which makes it difficult to determine whether it is feasible and efficient to recover a certain resource. Secondly, there is no overview of possible recovery methods and knowledge of how measures interact. Thirdly, external factors, such as new technologies, economic developments and market developments result in a complex, dynamic and uncertain situation, characterized by changing circumstances, where it is difficult to commit to short-term actions and establish a framework to guide future actions.

What is wastewater treatment?

Wastewater treatment refers to the removal of pollutants from wastewater before discharge to a waterbody. This includes physical processes such as sedimentation and filtration, chemical processes such as precipitation and biological processes like aerated lagoons or activated sludge. Resource Recovery.

How does aging infrastructure affect wastewater treatment?

As the infrastructure, largely built 50 years ago, begins to age and deteriorate, untreated water will discharge into the environment and the costs to repair will increase rapidly.

How are WRRFs destroyed?

Although many microconstituents that reach WRRFs are destroyed through wastewater treatment and solids processing , some recalcitrant microconstituents and their metabolites may pass through the treatment process intact and may end up in the effluent or biosolids.

What is wastewater collection system?

Wastewater Collections Systems#N#Collections Systems refer to the system of underground pipes and maintenance structures that transport wastewater to water resource recovery facilities. These systems include gravity pipes, manholes, lift stations, force mains and more as they collect and transport residential and commercial waste.

How much wastewater is produced annually?

In excess of 300 billion cubic meters of municipal wastewater is produced annually in the world. The desire to protect human health, recover and conserve resources while adapting to a changing landscape, including new technologies and aging infrastructure, will drive more advanced wastewater treatment. With the ability to recover valuable resources ...

What are the most valuable natural resources?

Additional Resources. Water is the most valuable natural resource in the world. Municipalities and military installations must manage and steward wastewater from multiple potential sources, including sanitary and household, commercial, institutional, manufacturing, industrial, construction, and storm water.

Why is storm water management important?

As urban areas grow and severe weather becomes more common, the issue of storm water management will only escalate in importance because of decreases in natural land cover and the expansion of impervious surfaces , such as rooftops, sidewalks and roadways.

How much does resource recovery affect the environment?

Compared to the base-case scenario, the impacts of the resource recovery scenario on the total environment can both be reduced by 128–130%, in which the reduction of 100% is used to balance the impact (approaching to the net-zero impact on the total environment) and the remaining 28–30% is the benefit created by the resource recovery scenario on the total environment. The resource/energy recovery can indeed alter the total environmental impact, but greater benefits will be very difficult to attain unless electricity is supplied by such power sources as solar/wind/gas or nuclear energy.

What is the LCIA of the resource recovery scenario?

Based on the new assessment, the indexes (LCIA) of the total environmental impact for the resource recovery scenario are calculated at LCIA 1’ = −3.50 × 10 −3 and LCIA 2’ = −3.72 × 10 −3 per FU , respectively for Line 1 and Line 2.

What is WWTP and LCA?

A full-scale WWTP and a scheme with added energy/resource recovery options were quantitatively assessed by an adapted LCA model for its impacts on the total environment. The main conclusions are:

How is LCA adapted for Chinese conditions?

In this study, the current LCA framework was adapted for Chinese conditions by localizing the normalization factors and relative weights. This allowed the regional impact of wastewater discharge to be calculated. With this LCA approach, the overall environmental impacts of a WWTP in China were evaluated and compared to potential resource/energy recovery options, particularly highlighting thermal energy recovery. It was expected that the present work can ascertain the effect of the thermal energy recovery on improving the impact of WWTPs on the total environment.

How does wastewater treatment affect the environment?

Conventional wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) clean wastewater and minimize water pollution; but, while doing so, they also contribute to air pollution and need energy/material input with associated emissions. However, energy recovery (e.g. anaerobic digestion) and resource recovery (e.g. water reuse) allow us to offset the adverse environmental impacts of wastewater treatment. Life cycle assessments (LCA) have been used more and more to evaluate the environmental impacts of WWTPs and to suggest improvement options. There is a need to search for resource recovery applications that genuinely realize a net-zero impact on the total environment of WWTPs. In this work, a scheme with highly efficient energy and resource recovery (especially for thermal energy) is proposed and evaluated. The environmental impact of a conventional WWTP in comparison with the scheme proposed here, with energy/resource recovery included, was calculated, and discussed with reference to LCA methodology. In the process of using LCA, it was necessary to choose a regional situation to focus on. In this case, a Chinese situation was focused as a reference, but the qualitative information gained is of worldwide relevance. The results clearly revealed that conventional WWTP does not benefit the total environment as a whole while the new scheme benefited the total environment via resource/energy recovery-based processes. Among others, thermal energy recovery played a significant role towards a net-zero LCA analysis (contributing around 40%) which suggests that more attention and research should be focused on it.

What is biological wastewater treatment?

Biological wastewater treatment is an effective technology to remove oxygen demanding compounds (COD) and nutrients (N and P) from wastewater. However, the role of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is no longer merely constraint to protecting the aquatic environment (e.g. eutrophication) or solely evaluated based on the effluent quality. On the contrary, the holistic environmental impacts other than an aquatic environment have been highlighted in the construction and operation of WWTPs ( Guest et al., 2009; Corominas et al., 2013; Teodosiu et al., 2016 ). For instance, emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHG) have been recognized as a major negative impact of WWTP operation ( Kampschreur et al., 2009; Foley et al., 2010; Fang et al., 2016 ). The previous studies have explicitly demonstrated that the total environmental impacts of a typical WWTP is always negative ( Corominas et al., 2013; Hellweg and Milà i Canals, 2014 ). WWTPs bring about a net global adverse impact on the environment when the external energy and chemical input and consumption are accounted for by Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods. Of course, the local improved water quality is the main driver for treating wastewater. According to estimations, the annual electricity input for WWTPs in the USA accounts for about 3% of the national total consumption ( EIA, 2010 ). Apparently, the health of the aquatic environment is achieved at the sacrifice of other environmental compartments because of materials and energy consumption ( Roeleveld et al., 1997; Corominas et al., 2013 ). From a holistic perspective, WWTPs could be considered to be a source of pollution rather than a barrier for emissions. This situation is becoming worse, along with increasingly stringent discharge standards, such as the campaign for upgrading and reconstruction of WWTPs in China ( Hao, 2006; Zhu et al., 2013; Wang et al., 2015b ).

What is LCIA in environmental design?

The Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) is a crucial part of the LCA process. At present, there is no generally accepted assessment approach, due to its complexity and difficulty ( Pennington et al., 2004; Dreyer et al., 2008 ). Generally accepted LCIA approaches are Environmental Design of Industrial (EDIP) from Denmark, Life Cycle Assessment-An Operational Guide to the ISO Standards 2001 (CML2001) from the Environmental Research Center of Leiden University, and the Ecological Index Method Eco-indicator 99 and Environmental Priority Strategies in Product Development (EPS) from Sweden ( Dreyer et al., 2008; Luo et al., 2013 ), respectively. This study used LCA method CML2001, with adaptations to make it suitable for the Chinese context.

Why upgrade wastewater treatment system?

Enhanced treatment systems enable some wastewater plants to produce discharges that contain less nitrogen than plants using conventional treatment methods . Upgrading wastewater treatment systems is often expensive for municipalities and rate payers, but upgrades can pay for themselves or end up saving a plant money.

What is the source of nitrogen and phosphorus in wastewater?

Wastewater contains nitrogen and phosphorus from human waste, food and certain soaps and detergents. Once the water is cleaned to standards set and monitored by state and federal officials, it is typically released into a local water body, where it can become a source of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. Some wastewater treatment plants are able ...

How to maintain a septic system?

Homeowners are responsible for maintaining their septic systems in most cases. To protect and maintain their system, homeowners should: 1 Have their system inspected regularly and pump their tank as necessary 2 Use water efficiently 3 Not dispose of household hazardous waste in sinks or toilets 4 Avoid driving vehicles or placing heavy objects on their drainfield 5 Visit EPA's decentralized wastewater (septic) systems webpage to learn more about septic systems and EPA's SepticSmart Week Program 6 Consult EPA's guide on maintaining septic systems for more information: Homeowner's Guide to Septic Systems (PDF) (9 pp, 3 MB, About PDF)

What causes a septic system to fail?

Common causes of septic system failure include aging infrastructure, inappropriate design, overloading with too much wastewater in too short a period of time and poor maintenance.

How does a septic system contribute to nutrient pollution?

Septic systems can easily become a source of nutrient pollution if not properly maintained. Most homes and businesses send their wastewater to a treatment plant where many pollutants are removed from the water. Wastewater treatment facilities in the United States process approximately 34 billion gallons of wastewater every day.

Who is responsible for septic system maintenance?

Homeowners are responsible for maintaining their septic systems in most cases. To protect and maintain their system, homeowners should: Have their system inspected regularly and pump their tank as necessary. Use water efficiently. Not dispose of household hazardous waste in sinks or toilets.

What percentage of homes in the US have septic systems?

Septic Systems. Approximately 20 percent of homes in the United States use septic systems that locally treat their wastewater. When a septic system is improperly managed, elevated nitrogen and phosphorus levels can be released into local water bodies or ground water.