Life cycle environmental impacts of substituting food wastes for traditional anaerobic digestion feedstocks
- Centre for Advanced Sustainable Energy (CASE), David Keir Building, Stranmillis Road, Belfast BT9 5AG, Northern Ireland (United Kingdom)
Highlights: • Life Cycle Assessment of an industrial anaerobic digestion plant in Northern Ireland. • Demonstration of GHG savings for electricity production by the utilisation of biogas from AD. • Comparison of landfilling of food waste vs food waste utilisation for electricity production through AD. • Analysis based on a full-scale operational biogas/bioenergy facility, using primary data for both plant operation and feedstocks. • Inclusion of the avoided emissions from landfilling of food wastes and substitution of digestate for artificial fertilisers. - Abstract: In this study, life cycle assessment has been used to evaluate life cycle environmental impacts of substituting traditional anaerobic digestion (AD) feedstocks with food wastes. The results have demonstrated the avoided GHG emissions from substituting traditional AD feedstocks with food waste (avoided GHG-eq emissions of 163.33 CO{sub 2}-eq). Additionally, the analysis has included environmental benefits of avoided landfilling of food wastes and digestate use as a substitute for synthetic fertilisers. The analysis of the GHG mitigation benefits of resource management/circular economy policies, namely, the mandating of a ban on the landfilling of food wastes, has demonstrated the very substantial GHG emission reduction that can be achieved by these policy options – 2151.04 kg CO{sub 2} eq per MWh relative to UK Grid. In addition to the reduction in GHG emission, the utilization of food waste for AD instead of landfilling can manage the leakage of nutrients to water resources and eliminate eutrophication impacts which occur, typically as the result of field application. The results emphasise the benefits of using life-cycle thinking to underpin policy development and the implications for this are discussed with a particular focus on the analysis of policy development across the climate, renewable energy, resource management and bioeconomy nexus and recommendations made for future research priorities.
- OSTI ID:
- 22841171
- Journal Information:
- Waste Management, Vol. 73; Other Information: Copyright (c) 2017 Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands, All rights reserved.; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0956-053X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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