TITLE:
A Cradle-to-Cradle Novel Approach for Wastewater Management in Sustainable Urban Communities
AUTHORS:
Mianda Khattab, Salah El Haggar, Ahmed El Gendy
KEYWORDS:
Net Zero Water, Sustainable Urban Communities, Cradle to Cradle for Wastewater Management, Sustainable Greywater Treatment
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Environmental Protection,
Vol.14 No.3,
March
16,
2023
ABSTRACT: Water, a valuable resource to human lives, is being abused and driven to scarcity. This scarcity is leading some countries and areas to face difficulty in accessing drinking water. As the UN recently stated “by 2050 water shortages and harder access will be reached by around 2/3rd of the world total population” [1], thus, there is a high need to treat and reuse wastewater for domestic purposes, which will lead to less reliance on fresh water as an initial water source. Greywater—defined as the water produced in domestic houses including sinks and bathroom showers, and excluding any blackwater mix which is collected from toilets—is a type of wastewater. Greywater accounts for up to 75% of the daily water produced [2] while it has fewer contaminants when compared to blackwater. This makes greywater a focal point for treatment, and reusing to conserve fresh water and approach net zero water concept. Even though the definition of greywater is the same globally, its criteria can differ from one country to another, from one building to another, or even from the same person’s usage along the day. Accordingly, several treatment methods evolved over years aiming at treating the produced greywater for reuse mainly in irrigation and toilet flushing. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate a novel net zero wastewater approach applying cradle-to-cradle concept for urban communities; while also proposing a sustainable greywater treatment technique that is environmentally friendly, cost-effective and socially acceptable.