Fehmi Görkem Üçtuğ , Volkan Ş. Ediger , Mehmet Ali Küçüker , İstemi Berk , Ali İnan , Melisa Tuğcu
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
This study conducts a life cycle assessment (LCA) of tea production and consumption in Türkiye, the world leader in per capita tea consumption. Aiming to identify environmental hotspots and propose sustainable solutions, a cradle-to-grave LCA was performed using CCaLC2 software, CML methodology, and the Ecoinvent 3.0 database. It covers cultivation, processing, transportation, and consumption stages, focusing on key environmental indicators like carbon footprint and acidification potential.
The results reveal that consumption dominates the environmental footprint (91%) due to energy-intensive brewing methods. Cultivation and transportation contribute minimally (4% each). This highlights the need for promoting energy-efficient brewing practices and consumer adoption of renewable energy sources. The study also explores the environmental implications of different waste management strategies. Composting emerged as the most beneficial approach for reducing the carbon footprint and photochemical oxidants creation, while incineration might be preferable for other impact categories.
This study underscores the importance of addressing energy consumption during tea brewing and encouraging renewable energy use among consumers. Additionally, it promotes composting as a crucial waste management strategy for a more sustainable tea value chain in Türkiye. These findings offer valuable insights for policymakers, industry players, and tea drinkers to make informed decisions that minimize environmental impact.
期刊介绍:
Environmental Development provides a future oriented, pro-active, authoritative source of information and learning for researchers, postgraduate students, policymakers, and managers, and bridges the gap between fundamental research and the application in management and policy practices. It stimulates the exchange and coupling of traditional scientific knowledge on the environment, with the experiential knowledge among decision makers and other stakeholders and also connects natural sciences and social and behavioral sciences. Environmental Development includes and promotes scientific work from the non-western world, and also strengthens the collaboration between the developed and developing world. Further it links environmental research to broader issues of economic and social-cultural developments, and is intended to shorten the delays between research and publication, while ensuring thorough peer review. Environmental Development also creates a forum for transnational communication, discussion and global action.
Environmental Development is open to a broad range of disciplines and authors. The journal welcomes, in particular, contributions from a younger generation of researchers, and papers expanding the frontiers of environmental sciences, pointing at new directions and innovative answers.
All submissions to Environmental Development are reviewed using the general criteria of quality, originality, precision, importance of topic and insights, clarity of exposition, which are in keeping with the journal''s aims and scope.