{"title":"Environmental impact assessment of producing frozen spinach in central Italy","authors":"Ester Foppa Pedretti, Daniele Duca, Martina Ballarini, Kofi Armah Boakye-Yiadom, Alessio Ilari","doi":"10.1016/j.resenv.2023.100110","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>Europe has increased its production, processing, and export of vegetables in recent decades due to changing dietary patterns supporting a greater consumption of vegetables high in nutrition. The growing interest in environmental issues has led to advocacy for sustainable vegetable production and consumption. Thus, this study assessed the ecological impacts of producing 1 kg of frozen spinach (functional unit) by a food processor in central Italy (cradle-to-factory gate approach). We evaluated the global warming potential (GWP) for distributing the final to different destinations. We also compare the potential environmental credits for different spinach residue management strategies, residue reduction through improved process efficiency, and as a feedstock for biogas production (avoided maize silage) based on the total volatile solids content. The life cycle assessment was used following the CML_IA impact assessment method based mainly on primary data related to 2019/2020. The GWP was 1.55 kg CO<sub>2</sub>eq. with respect to the functional unit. Excluding the dominant cultivation phase, packaging, particularly corrugated board boxes, electricity, and wastewater treatment were significant contributors across the midpoint impact categories assessed. The GWP for distributing the packaged frozen to Australia was 24 times more impactful than regional inland distribution. When spinach residue is reduced to 20% and 10%, total impacts for all impact categories also decrease by 12% and 22%, respectively. The benefit of using the current amount of spinach residue to produce biomethane was less than 7% across all impact categories except terrestrial ecotoxicity (13%). Therefore, reducing spinach waste along the processing line and efficient end-of-packaging life management through recycling and reuse by the manufacturer can considerably reduce the environmental impacts of frozen spinach.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":34479,"journal":{"name":"Resources Environment and Sustainability","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":12.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Resources Environment and Sustainability","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666916123000038","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
Europe has increased its production, processing, and export of vegetables in recent decades due to changing dietary patterns supporting a greater consumption of vegetables high in nutrition. The growing interest in environmental issues has led to advocacy for sustainable vegetable production and consumption. Thus, this study assessed the ecological impacts of producing 1 kg of frozen spinach (functional unit) by a food processor in central Italy (cradle-to-factory gate approach). We evaluated the global warming potential (GWP) for distributing the final to different destinations. We also compare the potential environmental credits for different spinach residue management strategies, residue reduction through improved process efficiency, and as a feedstock for biogas production (avoided maize silage) based on the total volatile solids content. The life cycle assessment was used following the CML_IA impact assessment method based mainly on primary data related to 2019/2020. The GWP was 1.55 kg CO2eq. with respect to the functional unit. Excluding the dominant cultivation phase, packaging, particularly corrugated board boxes, electricity, and wastewater treatment were significant contributors across the midpoint impact categories assessed. The GWP for distributing the packaged frozen to Australia was 24 times more impactful than regional inland distribution. When spinach residue is reduced to 20% and 10%, total impacts for all impact categories also decrease by 12% and 22%, respectively. The benefit of using the current amount of spinach residue to produce biomethane was less than 7% across all impact categories except terrestrial ecotoxicity (13%). Therefore, reducing spinach waste along the processing line and efficient end-of-packaging life management through recycling and reuse by the manufacturer can considerably reduce the environmental impacts of frozen spinach.
近几十年来,欧洲增加了蔬菜的生产、加工和出口,因为饮食模式的改变支持了高营养蔬菜的更多消费。对环境问题日益增长的兴趣导致倡导可持续蔬菜生产和消费。因此,本研究评估了意大利中部一家食品加工商生产1公斤冷冻菠菜(功能单位)的生态影响(从摇篮到工厂大门的方法)。我们评估了全球变暖潜势(GWP)的最终分配到不同的目的地。我们还比较了不同菠菜残渣管理策略的潜在环境信用,通过提高工艺效率减少残渣,并根据总挥发性固体含量作为沼气生产的原料(避免玉米青贮)。生命周期评价采用CML_IA影响评价方法,主要基于2019/2020年相关的原始数据。GWP为1.55 kg co2当量。关于功能单位。排除主要的种植阶段,包装,特别是瓦楞纸箱,电力和废水处理是评估中点影响类别的重要贡献者。将包装好的冷冻食品配送到澳大利亚的全球变暖潜能值是内陆地区配送的24倍。当菠菜残渣减少到20%和10%时,所有影响类别的总影响也分别减少了12%和22%。除陆地生态毒性(13%)外,在所有影响类别中,利用目前数量的菠菜渣生产生物甲烷的效益低于7%。因此,通过制造商的回收和再利用,减少加工过程中的菠菜浪费和有效的包装终寿命管理,可以大大减少冷冻菠菜对环境的影响。