A laboratory scale rotating biological contactor (RBC) bioreactor was evaluated for the synthetic municipal wastewater treatment. The decentralized RBC potential advantage of relatively simple design, low HRT and aeration requirement, high loading capacity and relatively high nitrogen removal. An increase in loading rates resulted in enhanced removal rates and decreased removal efficiency for both organics and nitrogen. The bioreactor was operated under loading conditions of 9.6-28.7 g COD/m2.d and 0.085-0.255 g N/m2.d resulted in 48.0-76.9 and 33.0-45 removal efficiency for organics and nitrogen, respectively. The average removal efficiency in terms of chemical oxygen demand, total nitrogen, ammonia and turbidity was 72.4 2.5 mg/L, 38.3 1.9 mg/L, 95.6 0.8 mg/L, and 78.9 0.3 NTU, respectively. Moreover, an energy consumption analysis RBC shows that it consumes significantly less energy compared to other biological processes. Overall results exhibit the effectiveness of the RBC to obtain superior biological performance thus significantly enhances environmental sustainability. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.