Life Cycle Assessment of Artificial Wetland Systems for Rural Wastewater Treatment

Abstract

Decentralized wastewater treatment technology, especially natural ecological treatment technology has widely been used in rural regions. In this paper, a comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) of a typical wastewater ecological treatment technology - artificial wetland technology was conducted. SimaPro software was applied to simulate the wastewater treatment facility, and the CML2 baseline2000 impact evaluation method was selected to analyze the environmental loads and benefits during the life cycle. The environmental impact of the facility adopting grey-black separation mode is compared with that of the unified collection and treatment model to provide scientific basis and suggestions for the selection of wastewater collection and treatment model. The results indicated that the main environmental impact of the Southeast University artificial wetland system comes from the construction and operation of the artificial wetland and aeration tank. Marine water ecotoxicity is the main impact factor, followed by freshwater water ecotoxicity.