The European Water Act 91/271/EEC introduced a series of measures for the purpose of protecting the environment from the adverse effects of effluent discharge from Waste Water Treatment Plants (WWTP). There are environmental costs associated with attaining the required level of water quality set out in the act such as, emissions from energy production, ecotoxicity from sludge application to land. The goal of this study is to assess these costs. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been the analytical tool used to evaluate the environmental loadings. The CML 2001 Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) methodology has been adopted and implemented using GaBi 6.0 LCA software. Two plants of varying size and location were chosen for the study. The study found that energy consumption and sludge application to land are the largest contributors to the environmental impact associated with waste water treatment.