Preprint Article Version 1 Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed

Beyond the Black Box of Life Cycle Assessment in the Wastewater Treatment Plants: Which Help from the Bioassays?

Michele Menghini
,
Roberta Pedrazzani
* ORCID logo ,
Donatella Feretti
ORCID logo ,
Giovanna Mazzoleni
,
Nathalie Steimberg
,
Chiara Urani
ORCID logo ,
Ilaria Zerbini
,
Giorgio Bertanza
ORCID logo
Version 1 : Received: 11 January 2023 / Approved: 13 January 2023 / Online: 13 January 2023 (02:05:11 CET)

A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.

Menghini, M.; Pedrazzani, R.; Feretti, D.; Mazzoleni, G.; Steimberg, N.; Urani, C.; Zerbini, I.; Bertanza, G. Beyond the Black Box of Life Cycle Assessment in Wastewater Treatment Plants: Which Help from Bioassays? Water 2023, 15, 960. Menghini, M.; Pedrazzani, R.; Feretti, D.; Mazzoleni, G.; Steimberg, N.; Urani, C.; Zerbini, I.; Bertanza, G. Beyond the Black Box of Life Cycle Assessment in Wastewater Treatment Plants: Which Help from Bioassays? Water 2023, 15, 960.

Abstract

The assessment of an organization/product's environmental footprint is based on the protocols developed by the Joint Research Centre of the European Union, which take into account 16 impact categories. Among the categories covered are toxicity to freshwater ecosystems and to humans. Standard protocols use only chemical parameters as input data, preventing the true impact of entire complex mixtures, such as emissions discharged into the environment, from being determined. Biological assays allow us to bridge this gap: in the current study, assays were used to determine baseline toxicity towards aquatic organisms (green algae, luminescent bacteria, and crustaceans) as well as specific toxicity (mutagenicity and carcinogenicity). Expected impacts were compared using two approaches (standard and bioassay-centered results obtained are not always in line and, in general, the traditional method underestimates impacts). This demonstrates the importance of these assays and suggests that they be used in LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) protocols as well.

Keywords

activated sludge; carcinogenic; ecotoxicity; effluent; environmental footprint; impact category; MBR; non-carcinogenic; toxicity

Subject

Environmental and Earth Sciences, Environmental Science

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Download PDF

Comments (0)

We encourage comments and feedback from a broad range of readers. See criteria for comments and our Diversity statement.

Leave a public comment
Send a private comment to the author(s)
* All users must log in before leaving a comment
Views 0
Downloads 0
Comments 0
Metrics 0
Get PDF Cite Share 0
Bookmark BibSonomy Mendeley Reddit Delicious
×
Alerts
Notify me about updates to this article or when a peer-reviewed version is published.
We use cookies on our website to ensure you get the best experience.
Read more about our cookies here.