Estimation of Greenhouse Gases Emissions from Biological Wastewater Treatment Plants at Windsor

Wastewater treatment processes and biosolids treatment operations are considered as sources of GHGs (greenhouse gases) production in all industrialized countries. Gases like CO2, N2O etc., which are GHGs, are produced during biological wastewater treatment process. Off-site power generation also contributes a significant amount of CO2. In this study, based on energy consumption, it was found that 0.02 kg CO2 was released per m3 of wastewater treated in the Biological Aerated Filter (BAF) system, whereas 0.03 kg CO2 was released per m3 of wastewater treated in the Activated Sludge System. The amount of on-site GHGs emissions from microbial processes varied with the incoming wastewater characteristics and temperature. The on-site results indicated that plug flow reactors emitted about 45 % higher CO2 than completely mixed reactors at the Little River Pollution Control Plant (LRPCP). The overall GHGs emissions results showed that off-site emissions were significantly higher than the on-site emissions