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Environmental Assessment of Al-Hilla City Wastewater Treatment Plants



Author(s)

Mohammad A. Alanbari, Hind Q. Alazzawi, Nadhir A. Al-Ansari and Sven Knutsson

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DOI:10.17265/1934-7359/2015.06.013

Iraq is one of the countries that is suffering from water shortage problems and, for this reason, wastewater treatment plants become a necessity to minimize this problem. In this study, the impact of Al-Hilla WWTP (wastewater treatment plant) on the environment has been studied. This was achieved using SimaPro software package. This software is a powerful tool for analyzing the environmental impact on products during their whole life cycle. A huge amount of knowledge about the environment is built into the program and database, enabling to analyze a product with a minimum of specialized knowledge. The results of LCA (life cycle assessment) showed that the impact and damage on the environment by Al-Hilla WWTP was 41 bad points for each 1 m³ of treated wastewater. The most environmental impacts potentially were global warming, respiratory inorganics and non-renewable energy. The study also showed that most of the effects were the result of the use of cement, steel and electricity consumption.

SimaPro, environmental impact, life cycle assessment, wastewater treatment plant, Al-Hilla.