A comprehensive framework for eco-environmental impact evaluation of wastewater treatment plants: Integrating carbon footprint, energy footprint, toxicity, and economic assessments

The need for clear and straightforward guidelines for carbon footprint (CFP) and energy footprint (EFP) eval-uations is critical due to the non-transparent and misleading results that have been reported. This study aims to address this gap by integrating CFP, EFP, toxicity, and economic assessments to evaluate the eco-environmental impacts of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs). The results indicate that the total CFP was below 0.6 kg CO2/ kg COD removed, which is attributed to CO2 offset and biogas recovery. However, site-specific EFP varied considerably from 482.7 to 2294 kgCO2/kWh due to design differences of WWTPs and their aeration and mixing energy demand (46.96-66.1%). The use of crude oil and natural gas for electricity generation significantly increased EFP, CFP, and carcinogenic human toxicity. In contrast, a combined heat and power (CHP) installation enabled energy recovery ranging from 12.09% to 65.65%. Construction costs dominated the highest share of total costs (85.43%), with indirect construction costs (42.9%) and operation labor costs (61.4%) being the primary elements in the total net costs. It is worth noting that site-specific CO2 emission factors were used in the calculations to decrease model uncertainty. However, to improve modeling reliability, we recommend modifying the regional CO2 emission factor and focusing on emerging technologies to recover energy and biogas.