Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants: Gap, Challenges, and Opportunities in Environmental Management

Municipal Wastewater Treatment Plants (MWWTPs) have proven to be sources of adverse environmental impacts; however, integrated management can help improve their efficiency. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the gap between the current management and another based on an international standard applied to WWTPMs, in order to understand their environmental commitment, and to identify the challenges and opportunities they present for the adoption or certification of an environmental management system (EMS) based on ISO 14001. For this purpose, a descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in two MWWTPs in southern Mexico. In a first step, an automated checklist was designed based on the requirements of the ISO 14001:2015 standard and based on a modified FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) calculation method. In a second step, a diagnosis was carried out at the MWWTPs, followed by a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis to determine internal and external factors until a series of challenges and opportunities was identified. The findings indicate that the selected MWWTPs have a wide gap that keeps them away from efficient management. Among the challenges, "limited financial resources" were identified followed by "high turnover of managerial staff", while the opportunities with the greatest potential for improvement are related to the factors "candidate for investment" and "environmental policy". The treatment plants show a weak environmental commitment, therefore rigorous action plans should be considered, not only to protect the environment but also the investment, and they should be the main promoters that challenge the private sector.