THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF WASTEWATER TREATMENTS: THE LCA APPROACH IN THE LITERATURE

Abstract

The main aim of this paper is to propose a literature review related to the application of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to the wastewater treatment.
The application of LCA to this sector has been particularly useful because it allowed to obtain an integrated and complete evaluation of the treatment systems, highlighting all the environmental aspects related to the choice of a specific treatment alternative in order to avoid problem shifting issues (the risk is that a problem is solved but other problems can be created). Further studies are required in order to overcome the limitations still present in this research field. These limitations are mainly related to the updating of the environmental impacts assessment methods, in order to take into account new pollutants as well as the poor availability of good inventory analysis data and, finally, a certain subjectivity of the analysis.