| Abstract | The European Water Act 91/271/EEC introduced a measurement series for the adverse effects of wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) from effluents and emissions discharged to soil, water and air, to protect the environment. To attain the required level of water quality, there will be costs to set out and emissions from energy use, chemical use, and sludge production and management from wastewater treatment plants from both of the systems in which natural or advanced technologies used. The main goal of this study is to evaluate the environmental sustainability of aerated lagoons wastewater treatment plant located at the Ang Thong province in Thailand by using Life Cycle Assessment method, CML 2001 and Ecological Scarcity 2006 in SimaPro software. For the evaluation of wastewater parameters, closed refluxed method was used for COD, total Kjeldahl method for TN, Ammonium Molybdate Spectrophotometric method for TP, BOD by Azide modification method, and pH, SS and Fat, Oil & Grease were analyzed for emissions to water, while cadmium, lead, arsenic, and mercury, cyanide and total coliform bacteria for emissions to soil and the greenhouse gases, such as CO2 and CH4 for emissions to air by floating chamber method through the Gas Chromatography analysis. The analysis results of the wastewater parameters from influent and effluent were used as the inventory data for the life cycle assessment which were interpreted in the Superseded methods of SimaPro software program (version: 8.2.3), by using CML 2001 and ecological scarcity 2006. The laboratory results showed that the aerated lagoons treatment system was effective removal of organic materials, 86 % of BOD5, 83 % of COD, and nutrients, 70 % of TN and 68 % of TP, in municipal wastewater. The characterization, normalization, weighing and single score of LCA results showed the impact parameters of acidification, global warming, eutrophication, and Eco toxicity including human toxicity, marine aquatic, marine sediment, fresh water and terrestrial eco-toxicity. Among them, eutrophication is the only contributed impact parameter, which was proven by midpoint CML 2001 method. The greenhouse gases were emitted from the aerated lagoons treatment in the concentration of 91.98 kg.CO2/m2/year and 44.895 kg.CH4/m2/year, thus, the impacts from emissions into air, surface water and then top soil were contributed according to endpoint Ecological Scarcity 2006 method. It had been concluded that both LCA methods showed the same result that emissions to water is the common highly impact to surface water ecosystem that is related with the ecological impact parameter, eutrophication, from the aerated lagoons treatment for community wastewater. |