Integrating Industrial Safety and Circular Economy Principles in Wastewater Treatment: A Nexus Approach for Sustainable Resource Management

Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are critical nodes in urban-industrial systems, influencing water security, energy use, and environmental sustainability. Although circular economy (CE) practices, such as energy recovery, nutrient recycling, and waste valorization, offer substantial potential to enhance resource efficiency, their integration with industrial safety remains underexplored. This paper presents a conceptual framework that couples CE strategies with industrial safety protocols in WWTP operations, adopting a nexus perspective to capture interdependencies across water, energy, and climate systems. Through a literature analysis encompassing green supply chain management, CE-enabled waste management, and nexus approaches, the study identifies operational trade-offs and synergies that shape both process safety and sustainability outcomes. The framework emphasizes hazard identification, risk mitigation, and occupational safety alongside energy recovery and emissions reduction, providing a holistic pathway to decouple environmental impacts from economic growth. Findings indicate that a nexus–CE–safety approach optimizes resource use while enhancing resilience against operational hazards, regulatory non-compliance, and environmental disruptions. This integrated perspective offers actionable insights for policymakers, industrial managers, and researchers seeking to design safe, circular, and sustainable WWTPs aligned with global sustainability goals.