Green technologies for the use of urban wastewater: economic analysis

Abstract

Urban sewage is one of the biggest polluters of water resources. For treatment, the usual conventional technologies (CT) are based on civil and hydraulic engineering; more recently, green technologies (GT) based on biology and ecology began to be developed. The aim of this study was to assess the economic aspects of these technologies using cost-benefit analysis. The economic benefits are derived from the sale of forest products and the environmental benefits of water decontamination, valued by the avoided cost method. The results of the study establish that GT have better commercial and economic performance than CT, and that the inclusion of environmental benefit significantly improves the results.