"As the world's population grows and towns and cities spread, the associated increase in wastewater treatment comes with an overlooked environmental cost: greenhouse-gas emissions."
Global population growth and urban expansion increase volumes of municipal wastewater that require treatment. Scaling up wastewater-treatment capacity raises greenhouse-gas emissions from biological processes and energy use. Methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide emissions from treatment facilities add to the climate footprint of urban infrastructure. These emissions are frequently omitted from planning and climate accounting, underestimating the environmental cost of sanitation expansion. Reducing this impact requires improved monitoring, adoption of low-emission technologies, energy efficiency, methane capture, and integration of wastewater emissions into infrastructure and climate policy decisions.
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