Life cycle assessment of sewage sludge management technologies

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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.