LCA Food 2012 in Saint Malo, France! - Manifestations et colloques ...

PARALLEL SESSION 1C: ECODESIGN AND ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT 8 th Int. Conference on LCA in the
Agri-Food Sector, 1-4 Oct 2012
Figure 2. Main contributions from different stages to the environmental impact of the chicken product
In terms of cumulative energy demand, feed production was the dominant stage (around 50%) followed
by home consumption (11%) and product delivery (10%), but other stages included in the analysed system
represented significant contributions, such as slaughtering (9%), retail store (9%) and broiler production
(7%).
Comparability of the results with previous LCA studies of poultry meat may be difficult due to
differences in the methodology, especially with regards to the functional unit selected, system boundaries of
the study and the method chosen for impact assessment stage. Nevertheless, results expressed per kg of
chicken product were found to be of the same magnitude as several previous studies for CC (4.5 kg CO2eq/kg
prod.) and AC (123.3 kg SO2 eq/kg prod.) (Williams et al., 2006) (Leinonen et al., 2012) (Katajajuuri
et al., 2007) (Seguin et al., 2011). Estimated values for FE (5,5g kg PO4 3- equiv/kg prod.) were similar to
those observed by Katajajuuri et al., (2007) but lower than most of literature reviewed, which can be partly
attributed to differences in the methodology applied for impact assessment. CED results (46.6MJ/kg prod.)
were very similar to shown by Katajajuuri et al., 2007 but in general higher than other studies. This can be
explained attending to differences in the scope and functional unit selected for the analysis which often refers
to poultry meat at farm gate. The current study ranged more stages of the life cycle of the product (from
cradle to grave), which considers some high energy demanding phases, such as home consumption, retail
storage and product delivery.
3.2. Improvement options identified
In the first place, since feed production was identified as one of the major contributors to the environmental
burdens of the chicken item, the option of processing food industry by-products as valuable ingredients
for poultry feed was explored. Tomato peels and seeds were dried and conditioned for its use as feed
components (up to 3%) allowing to reduce the amount of imported soy in the formulation.
In relation to water consumption at slaughterhouse two main optimisation actions were identified. Firstly,
direct reutilisation of water from washing boxes process to clean installations and transport lorries was
pointed out. Secondly, internal water line from meat processing was selected for its potentially re-use in
scalding after decontamination through pulsed light and additional clorination. Combining both options it
was estimated that 18% of water consumption at this stage may be reduced.
Conventional tray and film were also ecodesigned. Increased use of plastic packaging has led to serious
ecological problems due to their total non-biodegradability (Siracusa et al., 2008). Specifically food packaging
materials are often contaminated by foodstuff and organic substances, making recycling impracticable
and economically not convenient most of the times. As a consequence thousands of plastic materials from
food items are either landfilled or incinerated every year, increasing the problem of municipal waste collection
and disposal (Kirwan and Strawbrigde, 2003). As a proposal to face this issue, a biodegradable packaging
for the chicken item was studied, based on polylactic acid and ethylene vinyl alcohol materials.
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