Life cycle assessment of sewage sludge management technologies

加拿大各地的市政当局都需要可持续的战略来管理其污水污泥。Kerr Wood Leidal Associates是雨水和废水管理领域公认的领导者，支持正在进行的研究，评估将污水污泥转化为污泥基活性炭（SBAC）的潜力，并将其整合到雨水系统中。他们的初步发现非常有希望，研究表明，在雨水花园中使用SBAC可以有效地去除径流中的污染物。将污水污泥转化为SBAC可能潜在地克服在农业中重新使用这种营养丰富的生物固体所带来的真正的健康和环境风险。Kerr Wood Leidal Associates现在的目标是量化他们提出的技术相对于竞争替代品的相对生命周期经济、环境和健康影响。了解这些影响对于Kerr Wood Leidal Associates确定该技术的长期商业可行性并将其推广到加拿大各地的市政当局至关重要。我们在不列颠哥伦比亚大学的研究团队旨在通过创建新颖的概率生命周期评估和生命周期成本模型来解决这个重要的、及时的问题，这些模型可以估计从污水污泥中生产SBAC的相对环境、经济和健康优点，与其他处理策略相比。这项研究的结果不仅将为Kerr Wood Leidal Associates提供支持，也将为加拿大各城市的政策制定者和决策者提供支持，这些决策者负责制定管理污水污泥的可持续战略。

Municipalities across Canada are in need of sustainable strategies to manage their sewage sludge. Kerr Wood Leidal Associates, a recognized leader in stormwater and wastewater management, has supported ongoing research evaluating the potential of transforming sewage sludge into sludge-based activated carbon (SBAC) that is integrated within stormwater systems. Their initial findings are highly promising, with research indicating that the use of SBAC in rain gardens is effective at removing water runoff contaminants. Transforming sewage sludge into SBAC could potentially overcomes the real health and environmental risks posed by re-using this nutrient-rich biosolid in agriculture. Kerr Wood Leidal Associates is now aiming to quantify the relative life-cycle economic, environmental, and health impacts of their proposed technology relative to competing alternatives. Understanding these impacts is critical for Kerr Wood Leidal Associates to identify the long-term commercial viability of this technology and promote it to municipalities across Canada. Our research team at the University of British Columbia aims to address this important, timely problem by creating novel, probabilistic life-cycle assessment and life-cycle cost models that estimate the relative environmental, economic, and health merits of producing SBAC from sewage sludge compared to alternative disposal strategies. The outcomes of this study will not only support Kerr Wood Leidal Associates but also policy-makers and decision-makers across Canadian municipalities charged with developing sustainable strategies to manage sewage sludge.