Carbon credit and emission trading: Anaerobic wastewater treatment

The concept of carbon credit arose out of increasing awareness of the need to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases to combat global warming which was formalized in the Kyoto Protocol. In addition to contribution to sustainable development with energy recovery in the form of methane, carbon credits can be claimed by application of advanced anaerobic processes in wastewater treatment for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. As anaerobic granular systems are capable of handling high organic loadings concomitant with high strength wastewater and short hydraulic retention time, they could render much more carbon credits than other conventional anaerobic systems. Granular anaerobic processes have become an attractive choice of treatment technology especially for high strength wastewaters, considering the fact that in addition to efficient waste degradation, the carbon credits can be used to generate revenue and to finance the project. This paper presents a scenario on emission reduction based on a methane recovery and utilisation project. An example analysis on emission reduction and the future trend is also outlined.