LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT OF 1 l OF MILK

LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT OF 1 l OF MILK F. Falconi *, G. Olivieri*, R. Pergreffi*, E. Aradeo**, P. Neri***, R. Bombardieri**** *SPINNER c/o ENEA- C. R. "E. Clementel" (Bologna, Italy), francesca. falconi@bologna. enea. it **graduated of University of Bologna (Italy) - ***ENEA C. R. "E. Clementel" (Bologna, Italy) ****Granarolo S. p. A. (Bologna, Italy) Abstract In recent years the concept of sustainability and the idea to evaluate the effects of human activity or product manufacture on the Environment has increased. In this sense Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a method internationally accepted to examine the whole impact associated to activities or products. LCA has been defined as a process to estimate the environmental effects associated with a product, process, or activity by identifying and quantifying energy and materials used and wastes released into the environment, and to identify and evaluate opportunities to reduce environmental damages. The dairy industry is an example of a factory characterised by the association of different production systems: agriculture, livestock, dairy farming, dairy packaging and product distribution. This study concerns the valuation of environmental impact of the production of 1 l of Italian milk UHT, and the comparison between two types of packaging: HDPE bottle and Tetra Brick Aseptic. The system analysed in this study is shown in Fig. 1 where the main stages of the process are represented in blocks. To assess the milk LCA we have considered data from Simapro database, from an Italian company (Granarolo S. p. a. ) and from an Italian farm, the inventory is calculated on the basis of its annual production. In the study the analysis refers principally to the method Eco-Indicator 99, but two others methods has been used to compare the results and to demonstrate the analogies: EPS 2000 and EDIP 96. We consider also the Function of the milk production because of its importance in human alimentation. Introduction The objective of this study is to examine the total life cycle of production and processing of milk, in order to quantify the potential environmental impact, and to compare two types of packaging: HDPE bottle and Tetra Brick Aseptic. The functional unit selected is 1 l of packaged liquid milk, the systems boundaries consider the breeding of cows, thermic treatments of milk (homogenizing, centrifugation, pasteurizing and sterilization), and its packaging until the final disposal of the pack. stable fodder silage MILK PRODUCTION (farm) dung Transport to factory Thermic treatment Pasteurization MILK PROCESSING (dairy) HDPE bottle PACKAGING Tetra. Brick Transport to sale Fig. 1. - Schematic flow chart of the life cycle of milk. MATERIALS & METHODS The standardization of LCA methodologies has been done by SETAC (Society for Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry) and “ISO” (International Standard Organisation) who has developed a series of standard: the ISO 14040 based on life cycle assessment. The LCA methodology includes four stages: goal and scope definition, inventory analysis (LCI), impact assessment (LCIA) and interpretation of results. Goal and scope definition: this stage explains the reasons because it has been done LCA. It describes the system analysed and the principal parameters: functional unit (defined as the quantified performance of a product system used as a reference unit in LCA study) system boundaries, allocation rules and quality data. Inventory analysis: the LCI consists of the collection of data and concerns: the resource use, energy consumption, emissions and products resulting from each activity in the production system. Impact assessment: the purpose of this phase is to consider the LCI results to understand their environmental importance. LCIA classifies the inputs and outputs of the inventory into specific categories, and it models the inputs and outputs for each category into an aggregate indicator. Interpretation of results: the life cycle interpretation is a procedure to identify, qualify, check and evaluate the information from the results of the LCI and/or LCIA of a product system. Results & Discussions In the analyse of the total life cycle of 1 l of milk (production, processing and packaging), the crucial element has been identified in the milk production, especially in the agricultural phase for the animal food. In fact the greatest environmental impact is taken by the breeding of cows, in particular for the fertilizing used in the cultivation of lucern and maize for the fodder. In the Damage Assessment (Fig. 2) are shown the principally results. These results are specified in the Characterization of LCA (Fig. 3): in Human Health the impact category mainly damaged is Respiratory Inorganics principally because of dust emissions, in Ecosystem Quality the impact category mainly damaged is Land Use principally because of the soil occupation in agricultural and in Resources the impact category mainly damaged is Fossil Fuels principally because of crude oil consumption. HUMAN HEALTH: the total impact is 1, 45 E-5 DALY, given for the 70, 88% by milk production, in particular because of pesticides emission in the soil (phenmedipham, metamitron, ecc. ); ECOSYSTEM QUALITY: the total impact is 5, 4 PDF*m 2 y, given for the 72, 21% by milk production, in particular because of land use in agriculture; RESOURCES: the total impact is 1, 23 MJsurplus, especially because of the consumption of crude oil in the operation of milk production and processing, and because of the transports; ENERGY: the total impact is 14, 5 MJ, especially because of the consumption of crude oil in the operation of milk production and processing, and because of the transports. Fig. 2. -Damage Assessment of 1 l milk. To render comparable the results of each category it has been done a normalisation of the damages. To give a numerical quantification to the normalisation it has been attributed a weight to these damage categories (Fig. 4). TOTAL DAMAGE 0, 734 Pt ECOSYSTEM QUALITY: 0, 313 Pt (42, 69%) RESOURCES: 0, 351 Pt (47, 89%) RESOURCES: 0, 0691 Pt (9, 425%) Fig. 5. -Emissions in all compartments. Fig. 6. - Weighting of 1 l milk, EPS 2000 and EDIP 96. Fig. 4. - Weighting of 1 l milk. To verify the connection between the weighting and the emissions we analyse the scores attributable to each compartment: Airborne emission (dust, NOx, CO 2, etc. ), Waterborne emission (Ni, Cd, metamitron, etc. ), Emission to soil (metamitron, As, etc), Raw material (crude oil, natural gas, coal, etc), and Non material emission (occupation as organic meadow, conversion to arable land, C 14 to air, etc). this connection is shown in Fig. 5. The life cycle assessment has been valued with others two methods (EDIP 96 and EPS 2000) to show the differences in weighting are not excessive: for example the difference between Eco-Indicator 99 and EDIP 96 (Fig. 6) isn’t elevated: 0, 734 Pt in Eco-Indicator 99 and 1, 1 Pt in EDIP 96. In all the three methods the greatest damage is given by milk production. . SENSITIVE ANALYSIS An important phase of this study is the comparison between two types of packaging: HDPE bottle (a new type of packaging) and Tetra Brick Aseptic. The HDPE bottle is composed by a particular triple stratum: an external stratum of virgin HDPE (40%); a middle stratum of carbon black and ground (45%), and an internal stratum of virgin HDPE (15%). To study these two packaging we have compared the operations of their preparation, filling of milk and transport to sale, to find the less polluting packaging. By this comparison (analysed with Eco. Indicator 99) the impact of Tetra Brick Aseptic packaging is smaller than HDPE, in fact the total weight of HDPE is 0, 0315 Pt and the total weight of TBA is 0, 0237 Pt, with a reduction of 0, 0078 Pt, equal to a reduction of 24% of the damage. The lower impact of TBA is caused principally to the less amount of emission (especially dust, NOx or SOx), these emissions in HDPE are greater because of plastic production Total Fig. 7 - Weighting of packages. unit HDPE TBA Pt 0. 0315 0, 0237 Human Health Pt 0, 0129 0, 0069 Ecosystem Quality Pt 0, 00234 0, 002 Resources Pt 0, 0162 0, 00935 Conclusions In this work LCA methodology has been applied to analyse milk production, its processing and its packaging. Milk production, specifically agricultural phase in the formulation of animal food at farm, has been identified as the crucial element. It is necessary to set up improvement actions. In the phase of packaging, the second crucial element is packaging, the comparison of two different packages, has demonstrated that the Tetra Brick Aseptic is a better package because of the reduction of environmental impacts. This study has been an important example of the possibility to estimate environmental impacts of a system of production and to characterize actions to reduce these. r e f e r e n c e s - Environmental management, “Life cycle assessment – Goal and scope definition and inventory analysis” UNI EN ISO 14041, ottobre 1998 - Environmental management, “Life cycle assessment – Life cycle impact assessment” UNI EN ISO 14042, marzo 2000 - Environmental management, “Life cycle assessment – Life cycle interpretation” UNI EN ISO 14043, marzo 2000 - Prè Consultans B. V. Plotterweg 12, 3821 BB Amersfoort - “The Eco-indicator 99, Methodology Report”, PRé Consultants B. V. , 17 April 2000, Second edition - Bengt Steen CMP Report 1999: 5, “A systematic approach to environmental priority strategies in product development (EPS). Version 2000. Models and data of the default method. ”, Chalmers University of Technology - “Environmental Assesment of Products. 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