Water footprint and energy calculation in industrial waste water treatment plants

Water is the source of life for all living things. As a result of industrialization and other human activities, millions of cubic meters of water are polluted every day. There is also the use of water in all production and consumption processes. Therefore, there is a formation of domestic and / or industrial wastewater as a result of water use. The direct discharge of wastewater with an excessive pollution load into the natural system causes irreversible environmental destruction. For this reason, the positive effect of wastewater treatment plants on the sustainability of water is indisputable. Wastewater treatment plants are facilities that treat wastewater that enters their bodies as a result of certain production / processing activities in order to reduce pollution loads to the receiving environment discharge standards. Therefore, these facilities use high volumes of water and energy on the one hand to assimilate pollution / process functioning. This situation has led to the need to carry out improvement works to save water and energy. Considering the developing technology, increasing studies and water scarcity scenarios, alternative solutions such as waste water treatment plants, usable quality treatment of wastewater in on-site processes, rather than just discharging wastewater into receiving environments in accordance with legal limits, are aimed at. In previous years, only the purification and discharge of water was seen as a solution, while increasing water problems forced humanity to create new and permanent solutions. The "Water Footprint" approach to reducing and preventing existing problems will be an important breakthrough. So much so that the contribution to the environment will increase with the water footprint studies of wastewater treatment plants that make a great contribution to nature with treatment and the management and sustainability strategies that will be determined as a result of these studies. Water footprint refers to the sum of the direct and indirect amounts of water that a product or service consumes from production until it reaches the consumer. Water is consumed in 2 ways, direct and indirect. In addition to the water that seems to flow from the tap, water is consumed at high rates for reasons such as water consumption caused by the production of products, logistics and energy use. This consumption is called "Indirect Use". In addition to this approach, the water footprint also deals with the source of the amounts of water consumed. If the amount of water consumed by the product/service until it reaches the consumer is supplied from underground or surface water sources, the water used is considered as Jul Water Footprint. The Yesil Water Footprint is considered to be if the use is caused by rainwater, and the amount of fresh water required to assimilate the amount of contaminated water from production to consumer standards is considered to be the Gray Water Footprint. Their sum refers to the Total Water Footprint. Applicable solutions to intensive water and energy use can be brought with the water footprint evaluations to be carried out in wastewater treatment plants. Based on this, an industrial wastewater treatment plant located in Kocaeli Province was monitored for two years in the study. The concentrations of pollutants at the entrance and exit of the facility were evaluated in terms of the receiving environment quality limits. Based on the data obtained as a result of two years of monitoring, the water footprint of the facility was calculated. In the calculations made, the facility was interpreted in terms of water and energy sustainability. The calculations made show that the high rate of the water footprint of the facility is energy use. This situation shows how closely energy is connected with water. In contrast, the total amount of direct and indirect water consumed by the plant during the treatment process is lower than the amount of water protected from being assimilated in the receiving environment along with the treatment of the plant. The facility causes a certain amount of water consumption during the treatment period, but the amount of water it protects from being assimilated in the receiving environment by the treatment has exceeded these values and the facility has shown that it is efficient in terms of water sustainability.