A Decision Framework for Designing Sustainable Wastewater-Based Resource Recovery Schemes

The availability of sufficient water supply is a challenge many municipalities have faced in recent decades and a challenge that is expected to intensify with time. While several choices remain for selecting alternatives to freshwater sources, water reclamation offers an opportunity for sustainable resource recovery. Nonetheless, tradeoffs exist in the selection of the most sustainable technology for recovering resources from wastewater when long-term impacts are taken into consideration. This article investigates the factors influencing the environmental and economic impacts of resource recovery technologies through the analysis of life cycle environmental and economic impact case studies. Key characteristics were extracted from life cycle assessment and life cycle cost case studies to evaluate the factors influencing the sustainability of the resource recovery systems. The specific design parameters include the type of resources to be recovered, technology utilized, scale of implementation, location, and end users. The design of sustainable resource recovery systems was found to be largely driven by scale, location (e.g., as it pertains to the energy mix and water quality restrictions), and the scope of the system considered. From this analysis, a decision framework for resource recovery-oriented wastewater management was developed and then applied to an existing case study to demonstrate its usability.