Environmental profile of typical anaerobic/anoxic/oxic wastewater treatment systems meeting increasingly stringent treatment standards from a life cycle perspective

► We employ a life cycle perspective to estimate the wastewater treatment systems. ► Six typical A/A/O alternatives are evaluated from an environmental profile standpoint. ► Sophisticated treatments are at the cost of higher resource consumption and GHG emissions. ► The only positive trade-off with improved treatments is observed when using bioenergy recovery. ► Optimal alternatives are identified from different positive perspectives.