Cost benefit and environmental life cycle assessment

This chapter evaluates the economic and environmental implications of MBR using Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). A brief introduction to these methodologies and the main developments and achievements when applied to MBR is given before the presentation of two case studies. In the first case study, CBA and LCA were applied for the assessment of seven wastewater treatment plants using MBR and other membrane technologies. The results highlighted the benefits of removal of substances responsible for eutrophication and the relevance of the scale factor regarding electricity use, one of the main environmental and economic costs. In the second case study, LCA alone was applied for the environmental assessment of four novel MBR configurations at pilot-plant scale focusing on the removal of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs), of which only hormones were found to be relevant in terms of toxicity terms due to their higher concentrations in the influent.