The future of Swedish food waste: An environmental assessment of existing and prospective valorization techniques
2018 (English)In: Journal of Cleaner Production, ISSN 0959-6526, E-ISSN 1879-1786, Vol. 202, p. 1-10Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
In Sweden, the current dominant valorization of food waste is the production of biogas. However, as current production has low profitability, other options are sought to find more valuable uses of food waste, e.g. as the feedstock for bio-based chemicals. One example is the use of food waste in the production of bio-based succinic acid. In this paper, a LCA study is presented in order to highlight whether biogas production or the production of succinic acid has the lowest environmental impact as valorization option for mixed food waste, and if mixed food waste could be an environmentally preferable feedstock to succinic acid production. The LCA study shows that the environmental results depend on the perspective. From a valorization perspective, food waste has the lowest environmental impact the biogas production. From a feedstock perspective, mixed food waste is an environmentally preferable feedstock to succinic acid production. Although many uncertainties exist because production processes are still being developed, it can be concluded that mixed food waste seems to be a promising feedstock for bio-based chemicals from an environmental point of view, and is of interest to be included in future assessments of bio-based chemicals for the emerging bio-economy. © 2018
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2018. Vol. 202, p. 1-10
Keywords [en]
Bio-based economy, Biogas, Food waste, LCA, Succinic acid, Chemical contamination, Chemicals, Feedstocks, Life cycle, Bio-based, Bio-based chemicals, Biogas production, Current production, Environmental assessment, Production process, Succinic acids, Environmental impact
National Category
Natural Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-36421DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.07.240Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85053075794OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-36421DiVA, id: diva2:1265117
Note
Funding details: Vetenskapsrådet, VR; Funding details: Chalmers Tekniska Högskola
2018-11-222018-11-222023-05-16Bibliographically approved