Life cycle assessment of sewage sludge management technologies

加拿大各地的城市都需要可持续的战略来管理他们的污水污泥。Kerr Wood Leidal Associates是雨水和废水管理领域公认的领导者，一直支持正在进行的研究，评估将污水污泥转化为集成在雨水系统中的污泥基活性炭（SBAC）的潜力。他们的初步研究结果非常有希望，研究表明，在雨水花园中使用SBAC可以有效地去除径流污染物。将污水污泥转化为SBAC可能会克服农业中再利用这种营养丰富的生物固体所带来的真实的健康和环境风险。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省大学的研究团队旨在通过创建新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，该模型估计了从污水污泥中生产SBAC的相对环境，经济和健康优势，与替代处置策略相比。这项研究的结果不仅将支持克尔伍德莱达尔协会，而且还负责制定可持续发展战略，以管理污水污泥加拿大城市的政策制定者和决策者。

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.